Is UK’s Boris Johnson a political cheermaster?

As fuel ran short at UK pumps and “eco-warriors” brought London’s highways to a standstill, Boris Johnson was in the midst of a bravura speech at the Conservative party conference, full of relentless
good cheer.
Right-wing think tanks, usually supportive of the Tories, disliked the speech for different reasons than the usual Boris-bashers. The Adam Smith Institute called it “economically illiterate.” Big-business spokesmen accused Johnson of treating them like a “bogeyman” about labour shortages. The government’s hike in national insurance to pay for increased social spending has damaged his party’s reputation as enthusiastic tax-cutters, too, according to a YouGov poll. Political Tiggers tend to out-live the Eeyores. After 18 months of the pandemic and years of tedious debate about Brexit, the UK is not in the mood to hear more bad news. Voters would like to start having some fun. It is no coincidence that the mini skirt is back in fashion: Shorter hemlines have always accompanied good times, from the swinging ‘60s to the cool Britannia of the ‘90s.
“Can you think of a better message to the party faithful and the country outside?” asked a Conservative cabinet minister when he was queried about his boss’s failure to acknowledge the gravity of the economic news. Johnson’s boosterism seems more in tune with the popular mood than Labour’s woebegone message, which, as Johnson teased, has all the appeal of a “damp tea towel.” My Tory informant may also have science on his side. Research undertaken on the links between happiness and politics indicates that when voters devote more attention to current affairs, the unhappier they become. Politicians are usually wise to put on a happy face unless the sober happenstance of national disaster dictates otherwise.
The upbeat optimist tends to triumph over the gloomy technocrat. In US presidential contests between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George Bush senior, George “Dubya” Bush and Al Gore, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, and even Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the winner was the person whom an average voter would prefer to hang out with. Where America leads on political culture, Britain follows. Johnson, though a Tory, looks to Labour’s perennially upbeat Tony Blair and his three electoral triumphs for inspiration. He doesn’t share Blair’s messianic zeal or religiosity (that would be a stretch given his tangled love life), but even the prime minister’s most bitter opponents concede his Blair-like appeal to voters outside of his party’s traditional base.
When asked by pollsters which politician they would choose to have a beer down at the pub with, voters plump for “Boris.” Johnson is one of only three politicians known to all by their first name — alongside Margaret Thatcher (although “Maggie” was as often cursed as praised) and Blair (who often had the adjective “phony” fixed before Tony). Winners all.
Even with serious-minded Germany, the same rule applies. Olaf Scholz, the Social Democrat leader who got the most votes in last month’s election, was hardly the life and soul of the party as finance minister, but he was always careful to smile broadly for the cameras during the campaign even if it gained him the nickname from a cross opponent of “the grinning Smurf.”

—Bloomberg