The 40 Hospital Promise That Never Materialized
Boris Johnson's 2019 election campaign centred on bold infrastructure promises. The headline pledge was unambiguous: "We will build 40 new hospitals over the next 10 years." This message was repeated consistently across Conservative campaign materials, press conferences, and parliamentary statements. By September 2022 when Johnson resigned, the National Audit Office (NAO) found that only 8 schemes qualified as "new hospitals," and none were fully built.
The NAO's 2023 report "Delivering New Hospitals" examined all 40 schemes Johnson had cited. The audit found that most were refurbishments of existing buildings, not new builds. Many existed only as planning applications or initial business cases. None had reached completion, and several showed no progress beyond the announcement stage. The government had conflated refurbishment programmes, planned upgrades, and aspirational projects with genuine new hospital construction.
The Nurses Numbers Game
Johnson promised "50,000 more nurses." During his tenure, the NHS did add nurses to its payroll, but the numbers were far more modest than claimed. More critically, the government counted retained staff who had already left and rejoined as "new" nurses, inflating the headline figure. Independent analysis by the Health Foundation and the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) found that genuine net new nursing recruits were approximately 8,000–12,000, not 50,000. This represented a shortfall of over 75% against the original promise.
Partygate: The COVID Hypocrisy
While Johnson imposed some of the strictest COVID lockdowns in the world—restricting the public from attending funerals and family gatherings—multiple gatherings took place inside No. 10. The Metropolitan Police investigated 12 events and issued 126 fixed penalty notices. Johnson himself received a fine for attending a birthday party during lockdown restrictions he had publicly insisted the public observe.
His statement "I am sure that no rules were broken" was contradicted by his own Met fine. The scandal was compounded by revelations of wine-fueled gatherings in the No. 10 garden while the nation was under strict "stay home" guidance. Johnson's pledge to govern with "integrity" and restore trust in politics was fundamentally undermined by these parallel rule systems.
Get Brexit Done—With an Ongoing Protocol Dispute
Johnson's central 2019 slogan was "Get Brexit Done." He did negotiate and sign a trade agreement (the Trade and Cooperation Agreement), but the Northern Ireland Protocol—part of his own withdrawal deal—immediately sparked disputes. The protocol created checks on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, exactly what Johnson had publicly promised would not happen. By 2022, the UK government was threatening unilateral action to override the protocol it had agreed to, suggesting the deal was not a clean resolution but a deferred problem.
Test and Trace: Billions Spent, No Evidence of Impact
The government launched its track-and-trace scheme with a £37 billion budget, promoted as "world-beating." The NAO and independent evaluations found no credible evidence that it reduced transmission rates. Most outbreak investigations relied on manual contact tracing, not the digital system. Critical early delays meant symptomatic people received results too late to isolate effectively. The scheme became emblematic of spending without delivery.
Levelling Up: Rhetoric Without Results
"Levelling up" was Johnson's core domestic agenda. Yet ONS data from 2019–2022 shows regional inequality widened, not narrowed. London and the South East continued to attract investment and jobs, while former industrial areas in the North saw real wages stagnate and job growth lag. The promised £4.8 billion levelling-up fund delivered only a fraction of allocated funds before Johnson's resignation.
Tax Rises Despite Manifesto Promise
The 2019 Conservative manifesto promised no tax rises. Yet Johnson's government raised National Insurance in April 2022, breaking that explicit pledge. The move contradicted his campaign messaging and contributed to the fiscal credibility crisis that partially triggered the economic turmoil of autumn 2022.