Has BoJo given us back our Mojo? Asks Peter Bingle

Another new year and life is anything but dull. A Third World War has narrowly been avoided and the British Monarchy is teetering on the edge of a major constitutional crisis. On the plus side, Fulham FC have started winning again!

What is indisputable, however, about the new year is that there has been a tangible and quite profound change in the national psyche. To summarise succinctly: Thanks to Bojo we have recovered our mojo!

Life has been grim

The last few years have been pretty grim. The Brexit vote was a cry of despair and anger from the dispossessed. The response from the political class and the rest of the establishment was to try and pretend it hadn’t happened. As the anger grew, the determination of the elite to maintain the status quo rarely wavered. The entire establishment united against the public will. Dangerous stuff. In different times, this was the cause of revolution.

And then along came Boris. He is that rare politician. Intellectually clever, a great communicator and a popular populist. Like Heineken, he is also able to appeal to parts of the electorate that no other politician can reach. It is hard to understand why so many of his opponents fail to understand why he is such a formidable operator. They still don’t seem to have learnt their lesson.

Why I love Bojo

During the campaign, the establishment threw everything at Boris. To no avail. The dispossessed and angry now had a champion (the opera Lohengrin comes to mind) and they rewarded him with a majority of eighty. The British political system has been shocked to its core. Perhaps Valhalla really is being destroyed! For the foreseeable future, Boris can do literally whatever he wants to. This is (apologies to Jason Bourne) the ‘Boris Supremacy’.

Bojo’s greatest strength is that he makes us smile, perhaps even chuckle out loud. The impact on the national mood, business confidence and national self-confidence is already evident. We are happier. Divisions are starting to be healed. We have a PM who says ‘Hi Folks’ with a mischievous smile rather than ‘Dear Comrades’ with a menacing scowl.

Isn’t it great that the good guys are winning? Boris is living proof that in the end light prevails over darkness. Like Reagan, he is one of life’s natural optimists. No saint(!), Bojo will ensure we once again feel comfortable in ourselves, regardless of race, religion or gender. Contrast this with what we have had to endure in recent times. Misery, anger and division ...

I haven’t felt this confident about our country for a very long time.

Written by Peter Bingle, founder of agency Terrapin Communications