They gave him the election – now Boris Johnson is trying to keep ‘red wall’ voters on his side

The prime minister’s bid for a ‘Rooseveltian approach’ is part of bringing back his agenda to ‘level up’ Britain after the coronavirus, writes Kate Devlin

The PM visits the site of a school yesterday ahead of its opening (EPA)

In the heart of Dudley, one of the English towns where Labour’s “red wall” crumbled last year, is a precinct called the Churchill Shopping Centre. Inside there was for many years a stained glass mosaic of the former prime minister, Boris Johnson’s great hero.

But when Mr Johnson visits Dudley to give a major speech on Tuesday, the signs are that it will be to praise not Churchill but another wartime leader, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

At the weekend, Michael Gove, the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, invoked FDR during a speech to set out the government’s future plans.