This is the end of politics as we know it

For the past decade, Westminster has been a matter of coalitions and pacts, knife-edge votes, and backbench pressure groups wielding disproportionate influence. For political reporters, it is now as if we’ve woken up to find ourselves in a different country

A ‘new golden age for Britain’: vainglorious, implausible or both? (Getty)

What a difference a week makes – at least if that week includes a landslide general election victory for the prime minister.

For months, Boris Johnson has been fretting away like a tethered steer, chafing at the constraints imposed on him by the finely balanced House of Commons he inherited from Theresa May.

His lack of a majority restricted his freedom of movement and saw him thwarted at every turn as foes used procedural tricks and legal manoeuvres to ensure he could not simply plough ahead with his Brexit plans with the minimal scrutiny which appears to be his preferred option.

Now, the voters of Workington and Bolsover, Stoke and Blyth Valley, have freed him from his bonds and there are no limits left to what he can do – or at least try to do.

Thus liberated, there were certainly no limits to his dreams.

“I do not think it vainglorious or implausible to say that a new golden age for this United Kingdom is now within reach,” he proclaimed, in what must be one of the most vainglorious – and probably implausible – statements ever to resound around the chamber of the Commons.

For political reporters, it was as if we had woken up one day and found ourselves in a different country.

For the past decade, UK politics has been a matter of coalitions and pacts, knife-edge votes and backbench pressure groups wielding disproportionate influence.

The question was often not “What does the prime minister want to do?” but “What concessions will the Liberal Democrats force out of David Cameron?” or later “Can Theresa May keep her eurosceptic backbenchers on board?” The views of Steve Baker or Dominic Grieve had to be consulted before we could establish which incremental shift in the Brexit process was likely to succeed.

Now we appear to be back in the glory days of a Thatcher or Blair: presidential-style politics, with very little to stand in the way of a visionary leader tearing up constitutional norms, reshaping government, going to war or making profound changes to the way the economy functions.

Once upon a time, of course, this was not unusual, with government for most of the 65 years after the Second World War enjoying majorities comfortable enough to allow them to govern. It is difficult to remember now what a shock it was when David Cameron and Nick Clegg hopped into bed with one another to create the first coalition government the UK had seen in decades.

What remains to be seen is whether voters will enjoy the exhilarating smack of firm government, or whether at least some of them will look back with wistful nostalgia on the days of concession and compromise – or, as Mr Johnson would put it, “dither and delay”.

Yours,

Andrew Woodcock

Political editor