Boris johnson

Those Tory MPs who want to oust Boris Johnson are not a single group. They come from all wings of the party and all intakes and would not agree on who should succeed him. This means there is no single view among them about the best way to proceed.  But one of the most influential of their number tells me they have now come to the view it would be best to act after either the police investigation has concluded or the May elections, whichever comes first. Their argument is that, at this point, there would be the greatest consensus in both the party (and among Tory MPs) about the need for change. This would minimise the amount of poison the deed would inject into the Tory bloodstream.

After Tory MPs spent the afternoon laying into Boris Johnson over Sue Gray's summary of her report, the Prime Minister finds himself in a much more fragile position than when he started the day. Tonight he addressed Tory MPs at a meeting of the 1922 committee. Given Johnson's Commons appearance rattled MPs rather than improving relations, Johnson went into the meeting on the backfoot. The demand to hear the PM speak was so great that MPs arriving late were turned away. The demand to hear the PM speak was so great that MPs arriving late were turned away Johnson began the meeting by telling MPs he had a really torrid time in the Commons chamber and needed to do a better job of explaining how seriously he took Covid, given it did 'nearly kill me'.

It’s no secret that the polls do not look good for the Prime Minister at the moment. The most recent Ipsos Mori political monitor, released this week, shows that seven in ten Britons are now dissatisfied with the job Boris Johnson is doing. The PM’s numbers now are similar to Theresa May’s just before she left office in 2019, Tony Blair’s in January 2007 and the types of figures registered by Gordon Brown throughout 2008 and 2009. In this context, some six in ten Britons think the Conservatives should change their leader before the next general election (up from 42 per cent last July), including more than one in three Conservative voters. Johnson’s struggles appear to be having a real impact on wider public perceptions of the Conservatives too.

‘Wait for Sue Gray’ was the ministerial mantra last week. And wait, we all have, as the days have ticked by with no sign of her report into the lockdown parties allegedly held at No. 10. But now, after a week of stasis which has had Westminster on tenterhooks, Cressida Dick and the Met police have dropped another bombshell on a quiet Friday morning. Dick revealed on Tuesday that her officers would be launching a criminal investigation into ‘partygate,’ having previously ignored all calls to do so. And today the Met has issued a fresh statement, saying they want ‘minimal reference’ in Gray’s report to the No.10 parties which they’re investigating.

Tory whips are working overtime to win round waverers as Boris Johnson struggles to rescue his flailing premiership. Among the arguments being deployed to keep the beleaguered premier is that Brexit could be endangered – a claim which Johnson's longtime Remainer critics like Lords Heseltine and Adonis are only too keen to deploy too.  So, as Tory loyalists seek to remind their colleagues about Johnson's role in winning the referendum and getting Brexit over the line, what better occasion to do that than on the second anniversary of Britain leaving the EU? Next Monday will indeed mark two years since that faithful day and Mr S hears Whitehall's finest in the Cabinet Office are planning a series of eye-catching announcements to mark the occasion.

There is a theory which states the primary reason for Boris Johnson’s political longevity is that there are simply so many scandals that the latest infidelity drives the last one from public consciousness before it really has time to sink in. 'Who paid for his wallpaper? Meal delivery? He had a party while forcing the country into social isolation and atomisation? How many parties— what do you mean the police are investigating him?' At this point, it seems like the revelation most likely to do him in will be the discovery that, at some point in the last two years, Boris Johnson sat quietly in a room and diligently worked through an afternoon without once breaking from his papers to do something outrageous.