Like Winston, Boris has to lead a government of ALL the Tory talents
CONSERVATIVE Party members may find, as their pens hover over their ballots, that the choice before them is not quite as simple as it once seemed.
The distinction between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt is deep and wide. These are two utterly different people, regardless of their political positions. Such contrasts really show themselves in a crisis, such as we can expect to have very soon.
And, as Lord Ashcroft’s research – revealed by The Mail on Sunday – shows, Mr Johnson has the double-edged quality of being ‘interesting’.
No doubt an interesting Premier would be fun if government were a spectator sport with no profound effects. But especially in today’s edgy conditions, politics has immediate and often dramatic effects on jobs, livelihoods, savings and more. And the word may remind many of the old Chinese curse: ‘May you live in interesting times.’
Lord Ashcroft also noted a focus group member’s telling and thoughtful remark that ‘Boris could be the best or worst PM we’ve ever had’.
This is a wonderful summary of the Tory dilemma.
Mr Johnson is a superstar in an age of dreary caution, a man of expansive ideas and bold actions, who scorns riskassessment and excessive concern for safety.
This will be wonderful if his judgment on every occasion is sound, if boldness in negotiation succeeds in scattering the enemy, if his luck holds. These are fine characteristics in a junior officer, but not so good in a general. It only needs to go wrong once and things will not be so exhilarating.
Perhaps it is too soon to assume the favourite will win. Mr Johnson is undoubtedly a great and unusual talent. He has the charisma and verve to slice through the knot of negotiations with the EU.
But his appeal to non-Tories now appears significantly weaker than his appeal to his own party. In a straight fight with Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, polling suggests he would win much less convincingly than Jeremy Hunt. What if Labour have the sense to get rid of Mr Corbyn? Mr Hunt’s advantages – that he is seen by the public as competent, experienced and reliable – might well be crucial in such a contest. Yet Mr Hunt remains uninspiring, more of a chief executive than a national leader. Will he really have the nerve to look the EU in the eye and face them down?
There is a message here for Mr Johnson in the final days of campaigning. He would do well to make it clear that he would not run a one-man whimsical government, that it will not all depend on him personally.
He badly needs to revive the Tory Party’s moribund policymaking and research, to once more find and embrace serious, costed, intelligent and conservative answers to the nation’s problems.
And he needs to make it clear that he will surround himself with colleagues, setting aside old rivalries and resentments in the interests of the country.
He must be ready to lead a government of all the Tory talents, in which he listens as well as speaks, just as his hero Winston Churchill did.
Most especially he needs to reach out to Michael Gove, the most accomplished thinker, reformer and orator in the modern Tory Party. That would be a truly encouraging sign of the generosity and maturity Mr Johnson needs to show if he is to be as great as he can be.