I'm not especially impressed by the responses! I hope your survey is not representative.
I must preface my interpretation with the fact that I cannot stand Johnson. I despise everything he's about and everything he stands for as a person.
However, there are clear and obvious things that people may well like about him.
He's probably the most experienced politician in parliament. Eight years as Mayor of London, three as PM, a couple as Foreign Secretary, and so on. He's been there through crisis situations and he always projects a positive attitude talking up his country. He talks himself, his party and his country up at every opportunity. However you want to interpret this, it works.
His image is very well thought through. It's not an accident that he looks dishevelled all the time. He deliberately disarms people with his off hand and off colour comments. He knows that many people find this appealing. He is more real to them than someone like Starmer or Sunak who come across as cardboard cut outs. He loses a percentage of the population because of all this but he gains more than he loses and he knows it. Most politicians are incredibly unlikeable people with their inability to say or do anything other than the 'party line'. It's boring and obviously false. Johnson bypasses all this. It must be infuriating to work alongside but he doesn't care and people respond to it. This is why people don't really care about his mistakes or misdemeanors.
Like it or not, the fact that he was close to death early in the pandemic made a huge difference to many people. Whatever you thought about him, he put himself out there answering questions and sharing information day in, day out.
I'm sure there is plenty more but these sort of things make me understand Johnson supporters better. They're not necessarily thick wankers. They just have a different set of values and requirements of a leader than we do.
