FOR all the confected stink over soft furnishings, Boris Johnson looks like smelling of roses once the results from Thursday’s elections are in. Voters want to hear about jobs, not wallpaper.
BoJo seems on track to seize scores of council seats, while our own on-the-spot reporter Rod Liddle thinks he could also snatch Hartlepool from Labour for the first time in 62 years.
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“Red Wall” voters, mostly Brexiteers, love Boris’s levelling-up agenda — especially the 18,000 jobs being created by neighbouring Teesside’s new Freeport, says Rod.
Even Scotland might spring a surprise, with one rogue poll showing First Minister Nicola Sturgeon at risk in her own seat.
Too much to hope for, maybe, but support for independence is pleasingly down.
As the BBC-whipped leaks-and-favours storm begins to lose its identity, only one political leader is in danger — and it is not Boris Johnson.
Trade union lefties are already plotting against Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer after barely a year in the job.
He has made zero impact since taking over from disastrous Jeremy Corbyn.
Corbynite Karie Murphy, a pal of Unite chief Len McCluskey, says: “I have got my ear to the ground — I hear the big trade unions are organising.
Murphy thinks firebrand Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana, “a real socialist” is the best person to take his job.
Anything is possible these days, but I cannot see voters opting for a Prime Minister Sultana.
Yet amid all this idle talk and premature Tory celebration, there is one major cloud over this Government and Boris personally.
London, the glittering capital city which launched him on his own spectacular rise to the top of British politics, is about to fall once again to incoherent Labour fraud Sadiq Khan.
VOTERS ABANDONED
I first spotted Khan when, although a Muslim, he was the only MP who texted me “Happy Christmas” every year.
It was a perfectly reasonable greeting, but I’ve no idea where he got my number.
Khan, elected in 2016, has already had a bonus year in power thanks to Covid.
On his five-year watch, 114 teenagers have been stabbed to death, 12 in just the past four months.
Families in suburbs such as Newham live in dread their sons or daughters might never come home.
They risk becoming victims of the county lines gangs spreading drugs and violence, apparently immune from the police who fall under Khan’s direct control.
Yet despite the chaos on London streets, Tory high command has abjectly abandoned 6.2million voters to another term of calculated City Hall sabotage.
Khan is nominally opposed by Shaun Bailey, a decent but no-hope candidate 13 points adrift in the polls.
Even though London is a Labour-voting city, Boris’s 2012 double triumph proved victory is possible.
Voters are desperate for real choice.
Yet no serious attempt was made to field a Conservative with the stature or charisma to give Khan a run for his money.
Tories stood by as the city — the powerhouse of the UK economy — was turned into a derelict car park and filled with ugly plastic barricades by Khan’s war on motorists.
These remain in place even after being declared illegal by the courts.
Khan pounced on Transport Secretary Grant Shapps’ lunatic Low Traffic Neighbourhood scheme costing hundreds of millions to effectively paralyse Britain’s embattled high streets.
The result?
Commuting is a nightmare of blocked streets, pop-up bike lanes, soaring congestion charges, pointless lane closures and bus stops in the middle of the road.
ROADS CLOGGED
Khan has spent £33million on his so-called clean air and green agenda.
But his traffic jams are actually adding to pollution.
Until affordable alternatives are found, drivers do not deserve to be treated like vermin.
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London might be a long way from Hartlepool, and even further from the thoughts of Scottish voters.
But it represents the key to the recovery of Britain’s Covid-battered economy, creating a quarter of vital national revenues.
As the pandemic comes to an end, with offices remaining empty and shops shuttered and roads clogged, it is a tragedy to see Mayor Khan turning the national capital into a ghost city.
Stubborn Boris
WHAT a waste of another mostly sunny Bank Holiday!
The Covid death toll is now regularly in single figures, lower than seasonal flu.
All the most vulnerable are jabbed and safe to hug each other.
There is no evidence pubs and restaurants spread the virus, or that social-distancing or hand-washing add much protection.
Yet Boris stubbornly refuses to budge from his roadmap May 17 reopening.
Why can’t he bring it forward three days to Friday the 14th?
At least we would have a weekend to get the hang of it.
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