To say the prime minister is in a spot of bother is an understatement this morning. After all the scandals and crises of the last few weeks, yesterday saw 99 Tory MPs rebelling against measures Johnson thought were needed to help control the new covid variant. This was after he personally appealed to many of his members in a meeting in the House. It says as much about the nutters in the party as it does about Johnson himself. There is much talk of his authority fading away.
The laws were passed with Labour help. Starmer is now beginning to look like a prime minister in waiting.
At the same time pictures emerged of the Conservative candidate for London mayor, Shaun Bailey, at a Christmas party in Tory HQ last year when London was in lockdown. He resigned immediately from his role as chair of the London assembly crime committee. This was perhaps seen as the least punishment because he remains a member of the assembly itself.
This morning the shock news is that inflation is at a ten year high, reaching 5.1% and well above the consensus forecast of 4.7%. This is only going to get worse in my opinion and a surge in prices is now baked in for next year. This will inevitably lead to lower living standards.
He and his party are going to claim this is a global phenomenon but no other country has cut itself off from a ready supply of labour which is already forcing up wages. I don’t see this ending until we’re back in the single market.
And Neil Parish, Tory chair of the environment select committee furiously ripped into the employment minister Kevin Foster yesterday after he kept referring to ‘processes’ put in place in the immigration bill to allow skilled workers and workers on the occupation shortage list to be recruited from the EU. Parish was furious and said Brexit was going to “destroy” British agriculture. He said, “I thought Brexit was about encouraging production in this country, not discouraging it. This is down to labour shortages.”
When senior Tories attack their own ministers as Parish did over matters of surrounding their flagship policy, the writing is on the wall.
Tomorrow, the North Shropshire by election takes place in the shadow of the Owen Paterson and partygate scandals. If the Tories lose that seat with its 23,000 majority, Johnson is almost certainly finished. Even if he wins, the majority is bound to be severely dented and it will further damage his USP. The party picked him not for his management skills, or his ability to lead a team. He isn’t leader because of his vision or moral standards. No, he was picked for none of those things but because he was popular and with his boosterism could garner unlikely votes.
Once that is gone, what is the point of Boris Johnson? There isn’t one. Mere boosterism isn't going to cut it.
Having seen a lot of prime ministers come and go, you can see how a succession of events, scandals and crises start to build and crash like ever bigger and bigger waves over the hapless and helpless leader until they succumb like weakened sea defences.
This is how Johnson looks to me this morning. He is definitely not going to lead them into the next election and will be lucky to survive until next spring.
