A general election would be democracy
0.02% of electorate will choose PM
Do yourselves a favour this weekend and take £ 8 from your pocket, purse or piggy bank.
Then head down to your nearest bookmaker and stick the lot on Boris Johnson winning the Tory party leadership race.
At likely odds of 1/ 8 on – you’ll get your eight quid back plus an extra
£ 1 profit. Please . . . take that little £ 1 coin and put in a special place.
In years to come - you can hold it and cherish it . . . as the only good this Boris Johnson ever did for you!
However, I should caution you to bet on Bumbling Boris winning the leadership race – NOT on becoming the next Prime Minister.
There’s a great big banana skin out there called ‘ Brexit’ – and there’s many a slip between the Tory benches and No 10 Downing Street.
Ayr’s Tory MP Bill Grant stopped in for a snifter last weekend and summed it all up perfectly. “Boris could take the crown . . . and the chalice” he said – the ‘ chalice’ being the poisoned version, of course.
That chalice could manifest itself in all sorts of ways.
The most obvious one is Bojo sitting down in Theresa’s place for the first time . . . and Jeremy Corbyn standing up to propose a motion of “no confidence”.
The Tories have already lost expenses fiddler MP Chris Davies.
And if they lose the July by election his demise created– their majority is down to just two.
Are there two Conservatives out there who will turn against Boris?
Well, if you put every anti- Boris MP into my pub . . . I’d call it a busy Saturday! A less obvious but even more poisonous chalice is the scenario that the anti- Boris brigade bend Theresa’s May’s ear and warn her that Bojo won’t survive a ‘ confidence vote’. Mrs May is tipped to clear her desk on July 24 after Prime Minister’s Questions – but she can hardly drive to the Palace and ask the Queen to invite a dead- manwalking to lead the country. That’s an ‘ off- with- her- head’ scenario. And if she nominates anyone else – like Jeremy Hunt – what does that do for the Conservative and Unionist Party members who voted in Boris in the first place? And that . . . brings me nicely back to our local MP, Bill Grant. Bill – a self- confessed remainer - has gone with the EuroReferendum flow in his voting so far.
In the Great Brexit Stakes, he backed Theresa May . . . whose horse pulled up before the finishing post.
And in the Prime Ministerial Chase, he bet on Michael Gove . . . who fell at the second last hurdle.
If ever a race deserved a Steward’s Enquiry – it’s that one.
I guess Bill – a fair play MP – is going to have to get used to the fact that in Tory party contests, the jockeys eventually resort to whipping each other!
Bill and this column amiably agree to disagree on a second Euro Referendum. He is one of many Tories who takes the party line that a “second referendum would undermine our democratic process”.
But I have yet to hear a single Conservative MP raise the point that 130,000 Conservative and Unionist Party members – about 0.02% of the electorate – will chose our next Prime Minister. Is that a democratic process? And whoever IS the next Prime Minister is going to take Scotland out of Europe on a hand cart – against the nation’s will.
The only true democratic process is a general election.
And holding one yesterday won’t be soon enough.
Well . . . there’s the good news . . . and then there’s the bad news, folks.
The good news is that I’m hanging up my laptop and this is my final column. The bad news is . . . it’s only my final column of the season! You’ll have to put up with me again in August. In the few hours Mrs Bob hasn’t got mapped out for my July break – I may make a return to the golf course. And get on that bike that’s hasn’t turned a wheel since last September.
Whatever you’re doing for your summer break – enjoy it!
See you back here soon!
The only true democratic process is a general election