"The show is over for the Boris Johnson gas bag, and the country is moving, like in 1997"

People are tired of the 'great leader' style of politics and are clamoring for competence over showmanship, says Paul Routledge, meaning it's finally time for Keir Starmer

Boris Johnson lost the crowd (

Image: AFP via Getty Images

It's over. The Boris era is finite.

He and his dwindling band of wiggling-eyed followers refuse to believe it, but the rest of us do.

And thank God for that. The politics of the great leaders plunged the country into a post-Brexit mess: divided, resentful and suspicious of those in public life.

Johnson saw himself as a man of destiny, called to lead the nation in times of crisis like Winston Churchill. And for a time people fell into the tempting illusion.

His trial at the hands of his fellow MPs confirms that he is just a big Gasbag, seething with rage against the world around him and unfit for any type of public office.

Boris Johnson: A lying politician who thinks he's above the rules (

Picture:

PRU/AFP via Getty Images)

That truth finally emerged on his small coterie of sycophants in Westminster, where only a dozen Tory MPs followed him in lobbies to reject his own government's Windsor framework to resolve the Irish protocol crisis.< /p>

It goes further. Lord Finkelstein, his Tory counterpart, says it well, saying Boris "lost the crowd" of voters.

If I can sense the vibe, people are fed up with this big leader company. Look where this got us: run by a lying politician who thinks he's above the rules he's imposing on the rest of us.

It could well be a watershed moment, like 1979 and

1997

, when the country changes decisively, and on this occasion the staging towards a more discreet but more competent government.

It has Keir Starmer's name on it.

In the meantime, we have a date with history in six weeks: local elections on May 4, when we can finish the job and start...