Boris Johnson, the Tories gleaming election winning weapon, was wheeled out into the sunshine last Thursday and by the weekend it had completely broken down. The story of his late night contretemps with his girl friend will not go away and filled the Sunday papers while he kept himself hidden away. This gave his opponent the opportunity of accusing him of being a 'coward' in an article for The Times this morning.
In the piece, Jeremy Hunt called for a 'fair and open contest, not one that one side is trying to rig to avoid scrutiny'.
In the piece, Jeremy Hunt called for a 'fair and open contest, not one that one side is trying to rig to avoid scrutiny'.
It was not a happy day for the Johnson camp. Headline writers were almost universally negative about his failure to answer questions. I heard one TV commentator suggest that prime ministers don't have private lives that are somehow closed off from the public view and must expect to be questioned and to give plausible answers. So his minder's plans to keep him away from the press is coming under a lot of pressure.
He refused point blank four times to say anything about the Carrie Symonds affair to Tory activists at the Birmingham hustings on Saturday and Jeremy Hunt's team are suggesting BoJo could become a security risk if he were to be blackmailed by a foreign power.
These are some of the stories from yesterday's press (some behind a paywall):
- Bojo could be a 'security risk' – Sunday Times
- Top Tories ‘raise fears’ – The Observer
- I’m more worried by his lack of serious policies – Peter Hitchens, Mail on Sunday
- Symonds can still save Johnson, if she wants to – Adam Bolton, Sunday Times
- Johnson’s real problem is his missing mojo – Dan Hodges, Mail on Sunday
- The fire and fury behind that smile – Sonia Purnell, Sunday Times
- Another fine Tory mess – Sunday Times
There's is no doubt Tory activists love Johnson but if the negative stories continue, even they might begin to question if he is an electoral asset or a liability. He hardly appears like a man confident in his ability
The Davids Gauke and Lidington separately tweeted about Johnson's Brexit policy ridiculing his proposals. Here is Gauke's:
If your Brexit strategy involves:— David Gauke (@DavidGauke) 22 June 2019
(a) leaving without a deal but negotiating an FTA during the implementation period; or
(b) making unilateral use of Article 24 of GATT
you don’t have a credible Brexit strategy.
If your strategy involves both (a) and (b), 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️.
Charles Moore in Saturday's Telegraph says Tory grass roots are the 'only group that can save Brexit now'. They 'save' it by choosing a lazy, reckless, incompetent, dishonest liar. Moore thinks Hunt has no chance of succeeding but says he 'can see how Mr Johnson just might'. Mmmm..just might. Even Moore seems to be getting the message. He also talks about BoJo setting up an inner war cabinet (as opposed to an outer one presumably) whose 'sole purpose is Brexit victory' and says the Brexit Secretary should be the peacetime equivalent of a D-day planner.
I assume Moore wrote the piece while listening to the sound of Rolls-Royce Merlin engines playing on a cracked 78. On that subject, if you haven't already seen it can I point you to this video HERE? A warning - don't watch it while doing anything delicate.
The next Hunt-Johnson (how appropriate that is) hustings will take place on Thursday this week.
Today the grandly title Alternative Arrangements Commission will deliver their interim report claiming that alternative technological solutions to replace the backstop are 'feasible' within three years. The Guardian suggest all the answers they have come up with have either already been rejected by one side or the other or will be as soon as the report is published.
We begin the 4th year of Brexit as we began the first. No leadership, no plan and still going round the same old circles.
If anyone had suggested this as a scenario before the referendum in 2016 (and nobody did) it would have been dismissed as 'scaremongering wouldn't it?
