I wonder how many people (and I don't mean on GN) still see Johnson as a 'man of the people' - an image I believe he began to create and embellish when he realised how popular he was with the red-wall voters, etc?
Do people really believe he was... trigger-warning - I'm going to use the 'B' word... genuinely passionate about Brexit? For all his bumbling and mumbling and faltering over words, he's an intelligent - and articulate (in print) man, He understands full well how Parliament and governments function and, as he once indicated, he also knows that many of the nation's problems are and were home-grown and not the fault of the EU. Yet he approached our exit with the zeal and passion of a dedicated Euro-sceptic. But only in an outwardly flamboyant, role-playing manner. The grunt work, the nuts and bolts of it, the hours of poring over details - he left to others while he trotted around the country donning hi-viz jackets and safety helmets, protective footwear and aprons - 'getting down' with industry and commerce for innumerable photo-ops! Not to mention hiding in the odd fridge if it looked like things weren't going strictly to plan.
Then along came Covid... a real fly-in-the-ointment if ever there was one. I don't think initially he had a clue how to deal with it nor took it too seriously. I honestly think he saw it more as a bloomin' great spanner in the works, a huge hurdle thrown in the way of attaining his personal ambition, rather than a threat to the nation's public health and wellbeing, which is why he dithered in the initial stages, and only began to get to grips with it when others made him aware of how serious it was.
I think he 'partied' simply because he wanted to. Whatever rules were in place at the time were broken because he is not a man who gives too much thought to 'obligations' and constraints, and seems rather surprised when anyone suggests that such restrictions should apply to him.
I think he'll garner a lot of support from those in the 'anti-lockdown' camp, but as many were / are also anti-vaxxers, I don't know how they'll square that with his enthusiasm for the vaccine rollout.
But for those who lost family members to Covid and who were prevented from being with them; those who were not able to attend funerals and other family events and occasions... I don't think they will easily forgive him. And neither will I. Not because I was confined to hospital room no bigger than a broom cupboard virtually 24/7 for months, but because my disabled partner who has no living family member in this country desperately needed to sit with me for half an hour - for us just to be together for a short while, so that he could reassure himself that I was getting better and that eventually I would come home. But like so many thousands of others, he had to suck it up because the rules at the time didn't allow it.
. Then we couldn’t even give her a decent send off. I’m spitting blood just thinking about it 
