Adam Bienkov is Senior Politics Editor at Business Insider and based in the House of Commons press gallery. One imagines he is well plugged in to the political scene in Westminster. He's certainly active on Twitter and he writes a blog (far better than this one albeit not so regularly - its quality over quantity) on substack. His latest effort was to forecast a leadership challenge to Boris Johnson and one can see why. His premiership is disintegrating before our eyes.
Tory MPs and Brexiteers were quite relaxed about him betraying the nation and the DUP. They all knew the £350 million a week and Turkey joining the EU were lies but said nothing. But now he has become a liability and is in a sense betraying them and so, notwithstanding an 80 seat majority, the buzzards are circling.
Bienkov cites 5 reasons why he thinks a challenge looks likely - I won't go into what has prompted the challenge, unless you've lived in a barrel these last 2-3 weeks it will be quite obvious.
His reasons are these (read the details on his blog):
- Johnson's own supporters are deserting him
- Potential successors are testing the water
- Briefings against Johnson are getting worse
- Conservative MPs openly speak out against the prime minister
- Giving into demands for apologies
Last week has been a disaster for Johnson, one almost begins to feel sympathy for him. Wednesday was excruciating. He took a beating from Starmer at PMQs with his own benches almost deserted behind him, followed by a serious duffing up at the liaison committee and then almost the coup de grace at the 1922 committee! What a day - and the problems were all self-inflicted, that is what has made it worse.
Yesterday saw the betrayal of the north over the axing of part of HS2, something the prime minister was selling as a big step forward instead of backwards. It was literally incredible.
He doesn't look like a man in control of events or on top of problems, he is more the man whose life has been spent creating problems for others above him to clear up. Now there is nobody above him.
Since he is utterly hopeless on the details, he should have appointed clever, able men and women but he probably knew they would be cabinet rivals so we are left with ministers who are seriously low wattage being micro-managed by a prime minister incapable of running a whelk stall.
So, the question of a leadership challenge is a real one and Bienkov's reasoning is sound but it doesn't include the most compelling reason of all. And that is he is simply tired of it. It cannot be much fun constantly facing big problems, more so when you know that they are of your own making.
A few days ago, on another
substack blog. Dominic Cummings wrote this:
One morning in mid-January he called me into his study.
Dom, I want to run something by you. Do you think it’s OK if I spend a lot of time writing my Shakespeare book?
What do you mean?
This f***ing divorce, very expensive. And this job. It’s like getting up every morning pulling a 747 down the runway. [Pause] I love writing, I love it, I want to write my Shakespeare book.
I think people expect you to be doing the PM’s job, I wouldn’t talk to people about this if I were you…
What does that tell us? This was in January 2020 before the pandemic hit and before any of the difficulties of Brexit became apparent. That time was as good as it got for Johnson. He had won the election with an 80-seat majority and was riding high in the polls.
Yet he likened the job to "getting up every morning pulling a 747 down the runway."
I assume it's now like pulling two A380s with the brakes on in the teeth of a blizzard wearing only a loin cloth. What does it say about his tenacity, his staying power?
He is also said to have told a collection of journalists over dinner at The Garrick club that he was experiencing “
buyer’s remorse” about his marriage to Carrie Symonds. This was at the all-male dinner hosted by the idiot Charles Moore that he rushed back from COP26 in Glasgow to attend. What does that say about him? I wonder how it went down inside No 10 when it was revealed?
No, I think there will be a change of leadership in the Tory party but the most likely cause will be Johnson resigning because he's had enough and wants to go back to the sort of idle, dissolute life that he had as editor of The Spectator.
The worse thing will be his legacy. Apart from Brexit (a national tragedy), he will leave us with members of a cabinet who seriously think they might be prime minister. People like Liz Truss and Grant Shapps or Gavin Williamson.
We will be living with his legacy for years to come.
