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Shortly after seven o'clock local time on Friday morning the time had come.

In Hartlepool, a desolate coastal town in the north-east of England, the head of the electoral commission stepped in front of the cameras.

The numbers she had to announce were a slap in the face for the Labor Party representatives in the hall - and a triumph for Boris Johnson and his Conservative Party.

After 57 years of uninterrupted Labor domination, Conservative candidate Jill Mortimer won the parliamentary seat with almost twice as many votes as her Labor rival.

It must be even more painful for the latter that the Tories benefited from a 16 percent increase in former Labor votes.

At the same time, the first results of the local elections held on "Super Thursday" in England and Wales arrived.

They are considered the first major test for Premier Johnson since his election victory in December 2019 and the corona pandemic.

Judging by the preliminary results, Johnson passed this brilliantly.

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By Friday afternoon, the Tories had many dozen newly won mandates. "We as a government have been very focused on what the priorities of the people are - recovery from the pandemic," said Johnson, who made a hurry to Hartlepool on Friday afternoon, which he had already visited three times during the election campaign. "We did Brexit, and now we're going to do all the other things that we set out to do."

As in 2019, Johnson's “Let's get it done” message is catching on with voters in England again.

Especially because his government successfully procured vaccines against the coronavirus and inoculated them to the nation in record time.

More than half of all Britons have already had a vaccination, and more than a quarter both.

The number of new infections every day is only a tenth of that in Germany.

What drives voters to the Torries

All schools have been open since March 8, and further cautious steps out of the lockdown followed at the end of March.

If everything goes so well, all contact restrictions should fall on June 21.

This is what drives voters in Hartlepool and other former Labor areas to the Tories.

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The allegations of corruption and nepotism, on the other hand, which have been making headlines for weeks, rush past ordinary people like an English coastal breeze.

She doesn't care that Johnson's fiancée Carrie Symonds allegedly persuaded generous party donors to pay her the thousand euros per meter designer wallpaper.

The optimist Johnson's good mood is also fueled by the latest information from the Bank of England that the United Kingdom will see its strongest growth since 1941 in 2021.

The central bank forecast an increase of 7.25 percent on Thursday, thanks in part to the consumer-friendly British, who have more than 230 billion euros in their savings accounts due to the lockdown.

Brutal austerity measures are forgotten

The combination of growth and vaccination success, both consequences of the corona pandemic, make the English forget that it was Johnson's party that has put a brutal ten-year austerity course on them since the financial crisis.

The pandemic has also put a veil over the consequences of Brexit.

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The economic collapse caused by Corona coincided with the end of the transition period on January 1, 2021. Since then, the Kingdom has been trading with the European Union on the basis of a treaty that no longer includes the advantages of membership in the internal market and customs union.

Exports to the EU collapsed by 40.7 percent in January, while imports shrank by 28.8 percent.

A damage that is hardly noticed by the British public.

It remains to be seen how Johnson will keep his many expensive promises to the "forgotten" regions of England in view of the consequences of Corona and Brexit.

His rival Keir Starmer has bigger worries for the moment.

The Labor leader, who has been in office for a year now, has to endure violent attacks from the left of his party, the iron supporters of Jeremy Corbyn, who was shot after the 2019 election defeat.

The “Super Thursday” may not be a complete happy ending for Johnson either.

On Saturday come the results of the Scottish general election and a sure victory for the nationalists.

Its boss and Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon will declare this a mandate for a new independence referendum.

Which is the next big challenge for Johnson.