Boris Johnson’s first 100 days will make or break him — which is what makes his premiership unlike any other. In his favour is his ability to rally support in the country; against him the realities of a hung parliament.
How will he begin? It’s already clear that Boris Johnson intends to be an unconventional prime minister. His personality is such that he’s likely to eclipse all else in government. This is going to be the Boris Johnson show. Supporters and critics alike will be determined to keep him in the spotlight. He won’t change his style now that he has got the top job and privately, he is dismissive of those calling for a more sombre — ‘statesmanlike’ — tone. Just as significantly, his No. 10 will be very different from that of his predecessors: he plans to staff Downing Street with veterans of the Vote Leave campaign and City Hall.
There is a strong Vote Leave streak running through his cabinet, too. Dominic Raab, a stalwart of that campaign, becomes Foreign Secretary and First Secretary of State. Priti Patel, one of just a handful who sat around David Cameron’s cabinet table to support Leave, is Home Secretary. Michael Gove, who led the campaign with Boris, is now in charge of no-deal planning. The new Chancellor, Sajid Javid, may have backed Remain in 2016 but he is more convinced than the institutional Treasury that the government can do things to offset the effects of no deal. Expect his Budget this autumn to be the most radical for many years.
This is not going to be a typical Westminster operation. But then, Boris’s was not a typical rise to power. Until now, almost every British prime minister climbed what Benjamin Disraeli famously called the ‘greasy pole’ that leads to No. 10 in the same way.
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