Mission largely accomplished... for now

A big thank you to all of our readers and supporters.

Hi,

I just wanted to drop you a note to say that Folded with Adam Bienkov will soon be on its summer holidays for about a week or so, before returning with a vengeance at the start of August.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who reads and supports this newsletter.

Since launching this properly in the final part of last year, hundreds of you have become paid subscribers and we continue to grow every month.

This support has helped us to cover what has turned out to be the dying days of the Boris Johnson administration, without fear or favour.

Whether it’s exposing the routine lies that came out of Downing Street under Johnson, detailing the collapse of his government’s Brexit promises, exposing the Prime Minister’s hypocrisy on Russia, or revealing the failings and double standards of his media supporters, we have always tried to tell you the reality of what is happening in this country.

Doing so has not always been easy. The longstanding consensus within Westminster has always been that Johnson is a “teflon politician” who would always float above any scandal that came his way.

I was never convinced by this and believed that his ability to survive was in reality dependent on two, quite fragile, conditions. The first of these was that his own party should continue to believe that he was a winner. The second was that the media continued to allow him to get away with it. We were among the first to pick up signs, at the start of last November, that both of these conditions were starting to fray.

After the start of the Owen Paterson scandal, which led to sustained negative press for the government, Conservative MPs told me that the PM’s supporters were starting to have the “scales fall from their eyes” about him.

My sense then was that it could be the turning point for the Johnson era and so it proved to be.

Once the Partygate scandal began, Conservative MPs began to tell me that “the end of the [Johnson] regime” had begun, and although he managed to cling on for some months after that, my sense was always that his downfall was nigh.

Now he is (almost) heading out the door, we head into a very uncertain period.

My view, from covering the early stages of this Conservative leadership contest, is that whoever ends up replacing him is likely to pursue a political course that may in some ways be significantly more damaging to the country than Johnson’s has been.

The current frontrunner Liz Truss has already committed herself to large tax cuts, which would inevitably trigger a new wave of damaging austerity in the UK.

Truss’ heavy reliance on the right-wing of the party, and newspapers like the Daily Mail, means that she could also take an even more regressive stance on social issues than Johnson did. Without what Johnson describes as a “mandate” of her own, she would also be in an incredibly weak position right from the start of her premiership. That means she may be even more vulnerable to undue influence than her predecessor.

And with the economy struggling, and the government preparing to issue a large real-terms pay cut to public sector workers, dark times could still lay ahead of us.

For these reasons, it is more important than ever to support genuinely independent and fearless journalism.

If you would like to help us hold the next Prime Minister to account, please become a monthly or annual subscriber by clicking the link below.

Many thanks for reading and I will be back in your inbox when Folded with Adam Bienkov returns in August.

All the best,

Adam