No living political figure has damaged the Tory party and the country more than Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. And I'm not sure I can think of too many dead ones either. The Tories invited the amoral, incompetent degenerate in and enabled him at every turn. Anyone who recognised what a charlatan he was or challenged him had to go. Although he's out of politics now, the party is still one made in his image; corrupt, self-serving, chaotic, inept, and utterly useless. We are all the poorer for his three years in office, not just because of Brexit but also his reckless handling of the Covid pandemic.
But the party still has not learned its lesson. Andrea Jenkyns, MP for Morley and Outwood, thinks Sunak should allow him to stand as an MP:
With so many MPs retiring. I think @BorisJohnson should stand in one of these seats. Time to 'Bring Back Boris'. We need him to help stop Sir kneel a lot, flip-flopping, anti-Brexit, not knowing 'what a woman is' Starmer and Rayner from getting into power. pic.twitter.com/ft0pmhcJBl
— Andrea Jenkyns 🇬🇧 For Leeds South West & Morley (@andreajenkyns) May 25, 2024
She has sent in a letter of no-confidence against Rishi Sunak and has yet to withdraw it as the 2024 election campaign gets underway. Jenkyns isn't alone either. There is speculation that the 1922 committee is sitting on a lot of similar letters. They are the ticking time bomb set to explode on 5 July and set the party on the road to disintegration, destroyed by Brexit and Johnson.
Jenkyns has been deputy chair of the ERG since 2019 and should examine her conscience about where the blame lies for the coming annihilation.
I’m not sure she speaks for Johnson anyway. Would he really want to become the leader of the opposition for the next ten years, the most thankless job in politics? I doubt it.
He has a comfortable income writing rubbish for The Daily Mail. His latest effort claims: There's no doubt that Keir Starmer would be the most dangerous and Left-wing prime minister since the 1970s. This is now behind a paywall as if anybody in their right mind would subscribe to the Mail (£1.99 a month for the first year) to read his incoherent rants.
It isn't as if Johnson is that popular among voters. The Daily Telegraph reports that Paddy Power, the online sports gambling company, has cancelled an advertising campaign promoting Euro 24 and featuring Johnson because of "an apparent backlash from its staff against the former Prime Minister."
They say:
"However, with Johnson being hired and the script signed off, Dublin-based Paddy Power faced a revolt from its staff in Britain, the New York Times reports. Johnson’s spokesman and the betting firm have been contacted by Telegraph Sport."
The party is miles behind in the polls, about a quarter of the parliamentary party, not all of them because of their age, are stepping down having read the writing on the wall. This doesn't include those who have already defected to Labour.
I honestly think the Conservatives have a death wish. This morning the BBC reports that they plan to reintroduce conscription and mandatory conscription at that. Support among 18-24-year-olds is already extremely low, but that policy will eliminate it altogether I would think.
BoJo says polls that suggest the party will be down to 11 seats after the election are plain wrong. I wouldn't be so sure. Sunak is doing his best to make it come true.
