This England

REVIEW: While not a completely satisfying whole, this offers up an enlightening, frightening series of moments, arrogance and disastrous decision-making.

Determined to shake up Whitehall, he immediately embarks on “clearing out the deadwood” and replacing them with “true wild cards, clever people with extreme curiosity and a capacity for hard work”. Yes, he comes across as pompous, bumbling and full of bluster (and rather self-centered and short-sighted when it comes to his family life), but there’s something about Branagh’s version of the Greek Homer-quoting, Simpsons’ Homer-esque Johnson that’s rather endearing. [UK: Behind the chaos and scandal of Boris Johnson’s government lies stasis](https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/uk/300474154/uk-behind-the-chaos-and-scandal-of-boris-johnsons-government-lies-stasis?rm=a) [Dominic Cummings: Boris Johnson wanted to be injected with Covid-19 on live TV](https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/europe/300317610/dominic-cummings-boris-johnson-wanted-to-be-injected-with-covid19-on-live-tv?rm=a) * A “fiction based on real events”, it charts Johnson’s (Kenneth Branagh) rise to the role of Prime Minister in 2019 and the almost immediate challenges he faced in the form of Brexit, Storm Dennis and Covid-19.