UK election 2019: Satisfying new voters and old guard is a tall order for Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson’s grip on power depends on filling potholes in local roads as much as grandiose schemes for the UK after Brexit.

Boris Johnson addresses the nation after winning the general election. Picture: Getty Images.

Boris Johnson is master of all he surveys and is likely to be in power for a decade; Conservative support is soft and could melt away if the party disappoints after Brexit

Both of these statements can be true. This is why Conservative jubilation is tinged with trepidation about how the party makes good on the promises it has made to people who have not voted Tory before.

While one part of Downing Street dreams up grandiose schemes to reorder Whitehall and Britain’s place in the world, another knows that the grip on power depends on filling potholes in County Durham.

On Thursday the Queen will announce the government’s priorities, which have changed little since October and will focus on leaving the EU at the end of January.

The extra measures that are likely to be added, however, perhaps signal the party’s uncertainty about how to appeal to its traditional supporters and address concerns of new ones.

Law and order is an issue for both and longer sentences for terrorists and violent criminals are due to be a focus. The precariousness of bringing up a family in privately rented accommodation is a problem for the less affluent and a crackdown on “revenge evictions and rogue landlords” is also understandable.

The party is also promising early action to protect rail commuters from strikes and a ban on councils boycotting products from Israel is a surprising early measure for a government wanting to prioritise bread-and-butter issues in the north.

The clearest promise to those who “lent” the Tories their vote is a symbolic law enshrining planned NHS funding increases in statute. Although of no practical significance, the law is designed to signal that the health service is the government’s “overwhelming priority”.

In staking his government on improving the NHS, Mr Johnson is taking a huge gamble. On Friday he awoke to figures showing that every big accident and emergency unit had missed waiting targets for the first time. His promised funding increase of £2.5 billion in real terms could halt the deterioration in the NHS. But it is still below the average increases that the NHS has enjoyed for 70 years so significant reductions in waiting times are unlikely.

Before long Mr Johnson will be under pressure to find more money to demonstrate tangible improvements. Already he is being urged to use his political capital to finally reform a failing social care system, a cause of so many problems for hospitals and so much human misery in the poor communities he is pledging to help.

At the same time traditional supporters will demand that he stick to promises not to increase taxes. How Mr Johnson deals with the tension could end up defining his government.

The Times