London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Tuesday, Sep 16, 2025

Boris Johnson was hailed as the ‘delivery man’ but are the wheels coming off?

Boris Johnson was hailed as the ‘delivery man’ but are the wheels coming off?

Analysis: anger over rail and social care plays into narrative of a PM overpromising and underdelivering

In the run-up to the Conservative conference, senior Tory sources briefed that it was the moment to relaunch Boris Johnson as the “delivery man” – a prime minister who had pushed through an extraordinary vaccine rollout and would now take the same scale of ambition to his domestic agenda.

But in the weeks that have followed, could the wheels be coming off the delivery van?

Labour have crept ahead in the polls after a fortnight of Tory sleaze headlines that have left MPs annoyed and frustrated as the the prime minister repeatedly discharged bullets into his own foot.

In private, ministers and MPs believe the real test of Johnson’s leadership and of their electoral fortunes lie in two of the other big stories of the week. First is the deep disappointment and, in some cases, cold fury that have greeted the long trailed integrated rail plan that radically scales back on promises to towns and cities across northern England.

The second is an announcement, quietly slipped out overnight, that places a huge additional burden on poorer households for care costs, one to exacerbate the north-south divide when it comes to passing on assets to children.

Both of those stories, if they gain more momentum and if Labour can successfully turn them into a narrative, suggest a prime minister overpromising and underdelivering on two of the most important planks of his domestic agenda. After all, he had promised to level up the country.

“Boris has never had support because people believe in his ideology or think he’s a decent bloke,” one Tory minister said. “It’s because they think he can win and that he can get things done.”

The Conservative chair of the transport committee, Huw Merriman, said it even more bluntly to the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, on Thursday: “This is the danger of selling perpetual sunlight and then leaving it to others to explain the arrival of moonlight.”

The criticism that will sting the most is from Johnson’s own northern MPs. Jake Berry, the chair of the northern Tory caucus, quoting the prime minister’s promise on the third day of his premiership of a new line between Manchester and Leeds, asked Johnson directly whether “voters of the north [were] right to take the PM at his word?”

Robbie Moore, the newly elected Conservative MP for Keighley who holds a slim 2,000 majority over Labour, which had previously gained the seat in 2017, said he was “deeply disappointed” by the slimmed-down announcement. “The Bradford district has been completely short-changed,” he said.

There is an argument to say that delivery, of a different kind, is likely to have been one of the things that persuaded Johnson to accept the scaled-down but sped-up rail plans, though it is clear Rishi Sunak’s Treasury would have had a hand in forcing some of the changes amid wider concern about the costs of HS2.

The changes aim to bring some faster connections a decade earlier than if more ambitious changes had gone ahead. Johnson is gambling that commuters start to feel the difference in time to deliver electoral benefits.

Social care is another area that could see his support crumble from a bulwark of MPs who backed him over the national insurance rise on the proviso that a plan to fix the dire social care crisis was a prize worth capturing.

Many of those MPs also came from non-traditional seats with less well-off voters. Those are the voters likely to be the ones hit by details revealed on Wednesday night that means-tested council funding would not count towards the new cap on care costs.


It will effectively mean pensioners in £1m homes in Hertfordshire who do not qualify for early help have the vast majority of their assets protected, but in northern towns such as Workington or Hartlepool, elderly people who qualified for means-tested help could eventually lose up to the entire value of their homes.

There is another big test in the pipeline: the long-awaited levelling up white paper promised by the end of the year, authored by the Tory MP Neil O’Brien. Under Michael Gove at the new levelling up department, DLUHC (which Gove has told officials to pronounce as “deluxe”), the white paper will be the flagship announcement on Johnson’s foremost government priority.

The promise is that the paper will deliver on improving living standards, growing the private sector and increasing and spreading opportunity across the nation, touching almost all aspects of government.

O’Brien has a deep understanding of the issue, as one of the co-founders of the thinktank Onward, which coined the term “Workington Man” for the new kind of voter the Tories should be seeking.

Stakes are high for what the paper will promise to deliver. Johnson’s speech this summer on his vision for levelling up was criticised by experts for containing scant new policy or even any astute analysis. “We know it didn’t land,” one No 10 source said this week.

One minister said this week the PM had talked about wanting to avoid creating another “big society” – the David Cameron slogan that caught public attention – but came to be derided by his own MPs as meaningless. That will hinge on whether he can salvage his social care and infrastructure disappointments – and what this autumn’s white paper can tangibly deliver.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
French Debt Downgrade Piles Pressure on Macron’s New Prime Minister
US and UK Near Tech, Nuclear and Whisky Deals Ahead of Trump Trip
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
Anesthesiologist Left Operation Mid-Surgery to Have Sex with Nurse
Tens of Thousands of Young Chinese Get Up Every Morning and Go to Work Where They Do Nothing
The New Life of Novak Djokovic
The German Owner of Politico Mathias Döpfner Eyes Further U.S. Media Expansion After Axel Springer Restructuring
Suspect Arrested: Utah Man in Custody for Charlie Kirk’s Fatal Shooting
In a politically motivated trial: Bolsonaro Sentenced to 27 Years for Plotting Coup After 2022 Defeat
German police raid AfD lawmaker’s offices in inquiry over Chinese payments
Turkish authorities seize leading broadcaster amid fraud and tax investigation
Volkswagen launches aggressive strategy to fend off Chinese challenge in Europe’s EV market
ChatGPT CEO signals policy to alert authorities over suicidal youth after teen’s death
The British legal mafia hit back: Banksy mural of judge beating protester is scrubbed from London court
Surpassing Musk: Larry Ellison becomes the richest man in the world
Embarrassment for Starmer: He fired the ambassador photographed on Epstein’s 'pedophile island'
Manhunt after 'skilled sniper' shot Charlie Kirk. Footage: Suspect running on rooftop during panic
Effective Protest Results: Nepal’s Prime Minister Resigns as Youth-Led Unrest Shakes the Nation
Qatari prime minister says Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages
King Charles and Prince Harry Share First In-Person Moment in 19 Months
Starmer Establishes Economic ‘Budget Board’ to Centralise Policy and Rebuild Business Trust
France Erupts in Mass ‘Block Everything’ Protests on New PM’s First Day
Poland Shoots Down Russian Drones in Airspace Violation During Ukraine Attack
Brazilian police say ex-President Bolsonaro had planned to flee to Argentina seeking asylum
Trinidad Leader Applauds U.S. Naval Strike and Advocates Forceful Action Against Traffickers
Kim Jong Un Oversees Final Test of New High-Thrust Solid-Fuel Rocket Engine
Apple Introduces Ultra-Thin iPhone Air, Enhanced 17 Series and New Health-Focused Wearables
Macron Appoints Sébastien Lecornu as Prime Minister Amid Budget Crisis and Political Turmoil
Supreme Court temporarily allows Trump to pause billions in foreign aid
Charlie Sheen says his father, Martin Sheen, turned him in to the police: 'The greatest betrayal possible'
Vatican hosts first Catholic LGBTQ pilgrimage
×