The volte-face that he is currently trying to manage in seeking to defend a Withdrawal Agreement that he opposed is farcical.
How can ministers claim to be ‘levelling up’ the country when they are slashing targets for the North and Midlands in favour of the overcrowded South?
His “Goldilocks Politics” of “too much/too little, too fast/too slow” throughout the pandemic is unlikely to win over voters.
It should take advantage of the current macro-economic environment afforded by low borrowing costs, to provide stable – and sizeable – funding.
A new approach has allowed building work to take place offsite, leading to gains in productivity and creating long-term, well-paid jobs.
To paraphrase Burke, they owe their Party, as much as their electors, the benefit of their independent, locally-informed judgement.
Some of its problems can be fixed. Others won’t be. And one perhaps can’t be: namely, that this Parliament seems to be incapable of saying No.
One area that has had relatively little attention, but could get much more, is the behaviour of commercial landlords across the country.
The party is pinned down where it feels at home – in its new heartlands of central London, the middle of major cities and the University towns.
Often, these are not only hugely inaccurate, but paint a damagingly distorted picture which can influence public opinion and, through doing so, public policy.
Hopefully it will be crisis averted, and we’ll have a bit more time to fix the hole. But sooner or later, difficult choices on tax and spending are coming.
What about the impact on domestic violence, with everyone stuck in their own homes? And on those with serious but non-life threatening health problems?
How is it levelling up to concentrate new construction – and the associated infrastructure – in the South?