PM’S thrash & burn

Party’s over for Boris as Tories get incredible by-election hammering

I’M still coming to terms with that shock defeat. I thought it might be bad but I never expected anything like what unfolded last week. The horror, the horror.

I mean, 7-0. What are you supposed to do after seeing something like that? I know it was Man City and everything, and we have a lot of injuries but still. I mean, come on.

There was a by-election as well, I guess, but who has the heart for politics when your side has just been humiliated live on the telly? Similar levels of shame and embarrassment I suppose.

Another similarity is many people hold the bloke in charge wholly responsible – difference being I think we should keep our manager (in Bielsa we trust), but the Tories should sack theirs.

That was a phenomenal result, the one in North Shropshire.

It’s hard, particularly in the early hours, to distinguish between people ringing up and doing a bit of expectation management to people who actually know what’s going on.

Spanked

Thursday morning they all sounded the same. It was “too close to call”, politics speak for “we haven’t a clue.” The political equivalent of a 7-0 hammering was not too close to call.

To get beat like that in a seat where you’ve held power for just shy of 200 years is incredible.

In fact, beat is the wrong word. Spanked, mauled, pummelled, whipped. Pick any adjective you like.

It was an absolute disaster. As Oscar Wilde would have put it: “To lose one voter may be regarded as misfortune, to lose 23,000 is carelessness.”

It’s impossible to spin. There were half-hearted attempts by certain Tories to pin it on mid-term blues, a natural result for this point in the election cycle, but it really, really wasn’t.

The winner, Lib Dem Helen Morgan MP declared the “party is over” for the Prime Minister.

One can only imagine his response: “Party? What party? I wasn’t at any party, there were no parties” which is a reflex action now for Mr Johnson.

Terrible

Once again, the net is closing on the PM. Early in the week, 100 of his enemies rebelled in Parliament, shattering his authority. Now his friends are getting in on the act.

He is running out of road and it is becoming embarrassing in Parliament when people try and stand up for him. Their hearts are not in it anymore.

One ally said: “He has to start listening to members of Parliament who are in touch with people across the country on an everyday basis.” That may have been intended to be helpful, but is a death knell if I’ve ever heard one.

Incidentally, Mr Johnson’s first marriage took place in West Felton, in north Shropshire, in 1987. It lasted six years, which is going to be longer than his time in charge. Significantly longer.

With the polls taking a dive, Omicron on the move, and all sorts of economic problems stacking up, Christmas is not a most wonderful time of the year for Mr Johnson, it is a nightmare.

Only Leeds fans are in for a worse festive period than the PM.

By the time you read this Arsenal will have done something terrible to us and next up is Liverpool on Boxing Day.

Anyways. Enough football, more than enough politics. So let me wish you and your families a merry and, above all, peaceful Christmas.