Will bulldozer Boris get Hunt-ed down?
The thing about tyrants is that they are eventually destroyed by the tyranny they created, like victims of a creeping flesh-eating disease.
Hitler came to a sticky end in a Berlin bunker, Stalin was quite possibly poisoned and Romania’s Nicolae Ceausescu found himself on the wrong side of a firing squad.
Fortunately for Boris Johnson, that’s not the British way. He may be guilty of the mass murder of Conservative careers, which only Tories will mourn or mind, but it’ll do for him.
This PM will soon have time on his hands to take new Jack Russell Dilyn for long walkies and read all the classical Greek he wants. It’ ll make a change from the double-Dutch he talks.
Purging 21 Tory rebels, including two former Chancellors and Winston Churchill’s grandson, on the dotty advice of oddball sidekick Dominic Cummings was an act of such self-harm that he cannot recover.
Punishing them for the identical crime the PM previously committed himself – voting against the
Government – is hypocrisy of the highest rank. Even little bro Jo couldn’t stomach it and opted for his P45 instead.
Theresa May missed a trick here. If only she’d expelled Johnson for the same offence, he would never have been eligible to take her job.
Local Tory associations were ordered to wipe the 21 transgressors from websites and bin all campaign literature. But these activists are the backbone of the Conservative election machine.
They might rebel themselves and refuse to accept imposed candidates, forcing Tory HQ to bin them too. Bang go Johnson’s ground troops. The PM is cornered. He’s staked his premiership on leaving the EU on October 31.
He says he would die in a ditch rather than ask for a delay, even if Parliament mandates it. Better get digging that ditch, Prime Minister.
And Jeremy Hunt will help you choose the spot. I’ve been studying the former Foreign Secretary carefully all week as he hung around Commons coffee shops quietly building support.
Last time I saw him he was munching a banana. I’d watch that, old fruit. Remember how David Miliband’s Labour leadership hopes slipped on one of those?
Otherwise Hunt is playing a blinder. He hasn’t rebelled, and my guess is he’s angling for another shot at being PM.
But the chaos is so great that no one can predict with certainty the way forward. As Tory MP Nigel Evans told me: “Not only don’t we know where we’re going, we’re not even sure where we’ve been.”
But no way will Tories like Hunt idly stand by while a tyrant strips the flesh off the party’s bones.
My guess is that Hunt is angling for another shot at PM Last Sunday I revealed in this slot how Tory MPs were furious that Boris Johnson asked them to haul themselves to Chequers for drinks but only offered them one hour to knock them back. The PM cancelled, rescheduled the event and extended it to 90 minutes. Better. But still stingy.