Thread by @KellerZoe

Boris has never been shy about his political views: he's a self-defined one-nation Tory and wants Brexit done by the end of 2020.
telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/…

Those who regard Boris as an unelectable charlatan will take some time to recover from the scale of his victory and the power now at his disposal. He has no coalition partner to restrain him, no party faction big enough to threaten him, no opposition worthy of the name.

So what, his critics ask, will he do? Might he renege on Brexit, or embark on a vicious round of cuts? What on earth to expect from such an untrustworthy and unpredictable figure?

I’ve never understood this critique. The PM has never been shy about his political views. Eight years as London mayor showed us how he governs. His time in writing and government shows exactly what he is: a self-defined liberal and a one-nation Tory.

If you think the phrase is meaningless look at the constituencies he won over and the years in which they became Labour strongholds:
Bishop Auckland: 1935
Wakefield: 1932
Leigh: 1922
Rother Valley: 1918

The dream of a one-nation Tory is as popular in the northern towns as in Kensington. Now it is real. The coalition of voters the PM built this week is his own stunning personal achievement and his priority is to keep these people on board.

This is why he’s unlikely to water down Brexit: he knows it'd be seen by his new voters as betrayal. What’s more, he thinks it’s pointless to delay Brexit because no concession will assuage the Remainers. “We haven’t healed the rift by delay,” he once told me, “we made it worse.”

His theory is a clear clean prompt Brexit is the only remedy for Brexit divisions. He did compromise over Northern Ireland in the last deal. But he then had no choice: no majority and parliament was threatening to tie his hands. With a majority of 80 no one can threaten him now.

The idea of PM Boris cutting down the size of the state in an austerity frenzy is also fanciful. He promised his new voters more NHS spending and school investment. Tax cuts: there will be a few here and there but serious ones will have to wait. Spending will start straight away.

The Chancellor is all geared up to borrow. He thinks we’re in a new era of rock-bottom interest rates and argues it would be almost rude not to borrow more. As long as it’s ploughed into infrastructure, he says, he’ll borrow away.

Last week he told me he’ll rewrite Treasury rules so investment does not just go where it’s likely to generate the fastest return (i.e. the Tory-voting south) but to places that have been overlooked and undervalued (i.e. the newly-Tory-voting north). Boris is all up for this.

Both think it would be “ludicrous” - Javid’s word - not to borrow more when rates are so low. So there won’t be a sudden lurch back to austerity, because the PM and his Chancellor think it’s time to cover the north in cranes and hi-vis jackets.

Levido (Conservative campaign chief) had to weigh in and stop No10 promising to splurge even more. Much as people like me may wish it were otherwise, low-tax Thatcher-style economics has left the body of the Conservative Party. The Prime Minister has other priorities.

The one he keeps repeating, is that he has to ‘deliver’ for the new voters, the previously disillusioned voters to whom his campaign was dedicated. “We will work round the clock to repay your trust,” he said yesterday.

Repaying them will mean addressing regional inequality, stopping London becoming too powerful relative to the rest of the country. Funding (rather than reforming) public services, borrowing more rather than spending less.

To heal the rifts exposed by the referendum – and the rifts created by its result – he’ll combine a global Brexit agenda (more visas for scientists and high skilled workers) with tough control on low-skilled immigration. And somewhere along the way, redefine Toryism.

As he knows, a great many voters came to him because of their exasperation over the Brexit deadlock and Corbyn. Neither of these two will be around for long. At his victory speech to party members yesterday he seemed to be speaking for something called “the people’s government”,

which he referred to again outside No10. It gives a glimpse of how he sees things: not the 4th term of Tory administration, but the 1st term what he calls his "new One Nation government". At the moment, it’s a soundbite. He will now start work making it into the new Conservatism.

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