He has chosen his path - Boris Johnson redrawing lines of what it means to be a Conservative
The prime minister has broken two manifesto promises in an afternoon as he increases National Insurance to raise money for social care and pauses the triple lock on pensions.
'The Machine,' they exclaimed, 'feeds us and clothes us and houses us; through it we speak to one another, through it we see one another, in it we have our being. The Machine is the friend of ideas and the enemy of superstition: the Machine is omnipotent, eternal; blessed is the Machine.' E.M. Forster - The Machine Stops (1909)
Yes Boris Johnson is redrawing the lines of what it means to be a Conservative. In one sense it means becoming Blue Labour as many have been pointing out for some time.
In a more significant sense it means taking the Conservatives beyond party politics into the bowels of the Machine, where there are no longer any democratic exits. Where there are no exits at all apart from catastrophic collapse.
