It’s Johnson’s bad luck that the floods have happened in Yorkshire home of many of his GE2019 target seats
Most of our media may not have worked out or care who Boris Johnson really is, but the people of Yorkshire certainly have pic.twitter.com/AZiCKizzVm
— Jonathan Lis (@jonlis1) November 13, 2019
So another day goes by and still the misery continues for many families in South Yorkshire who have suffered because of the flooding. These are situations which are very tricky for a PM because just about nothing he can do or say is going to resonate well.
This has also played havoc with the carefully worked out programme for the campaign itself. I don’t know what was on the Cummings PR grid for this week because it has been totally sidelined.
Given we are just a fortnight or so from the postal ballot packs going out and four weeks away from the big day the question is whether the Tories will be hit at the ballot box by the flooding.
No doubt there will be a detailed analysis on this from Prof John Curtice in his planned definitie book on GE2017.
Will this impact be confined to Yorkshire or will the TV pictures have been seen nationally on social media and have a wider effect?
A problem he has is that he is barely better than TMsy when confronted with “ordinary people”. He’s awkward, lacks empathy and doesn’t respond well to being attacked.
What is ironic, of course, is that seats like those in the Doncaster area were among the prime targets identified to Tory planners as possible gains from Labour.