Boris Johnson was on holiday when he should have been at work last week.
But, ego trumps even indolence in Johnson’s litany of personality failings, so he returned to the UK to seize the opportunity not to lead the nation again – he never had the necessary support – but to make the weekend’s political headlines about him yet again.
Johnson claimed to have the 100 backers necessary to enter the Tory leadership race on Saturday morning, and 102 by Sunday night. This suggests one of two things – either he is a hopeless campaigner who could only rustle up two further supporters in over a day of trying, or he’s a man willing to sacrifice the sanctity of truth in the pursuit of power.
Let’s just say, it doesn’t bode well for the standards committee inquiry into whether he misled parliament.
What the whole business demonstrated yet again – particularly to the camp followers in the media who indulged Johnson’s weekend publicity stunt – is that, as President Lyndon B Johnson famously said, the first rule of politics is: learn to count.
For, what success Boris Johnson enjoyed in leading and controlling the Conservatives in parliament relied not on his inherent skill or personality, but a number – the 80-seat majority he delivered in 2019.
The Liz Truss interregnum was good for one thing. Only one thing. It highlighted the contrast with what went before.
MPs don’t need much persuading to fall into line behind someone, anyone, who can keep them in a job. That’s why many of those who resigned in the summer also voted for Johnson as leader three years previously. They knew his faults in 2019, but were willing to overlook them in pursuit of employment.
The polls are still against this government
Truss was booted by her MPs, not because she pursued nutty policies and blew up the economy, but because the result of all that idiocy – and there’s no other word for pursuing policies in the face of advice from every credible expert – was imminent unemployment for swathes of her parliamentary colleagues. Rishi Sunak inherits the same scenario.
The message from Boris acolytes like Nadine Dorries over the weekend was hardly coded
The polls are still against this government. And rightly so, given that it’s abundantly clear the Conservatives need a period in opposition to think about what they’ve done, and to think about what they actually want to do.
The message from Boris acolytes like Nadine Dorries over the weekend was hardly coded – they only recognise the one true leader and are content to continue to kick off as long as Sunak (identified by many as the chief architect of their man’s downfall, even though Johnson sabotaged himself by being awful) is in Number 10.
And, so, the Tories will remain ungovernable and, in due course, inevitably out of government.
James Millar is a political commentator, author and a former Westminster correspondent for The Sunday Post
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