Party leader is the one thing Tory MPs don’t need to change
AMID THE endless media speculation about the Prime Minister’s future, one question has gone largely unasked: what if the Conservative Party’s real problem is not Boris Johnson, but all the others?
For while the PM can be held responsible for not clamping down sufficiently on lockdown gatherings in Downing Street – even though he didn’t attend most of them – it is a bit of a stretch to blame him for appalling behaviour by an everlengthening list of Tory MPs.
To that list we can now add the name of Chris Pincher who has resigned as deputy chief whip – ironically, one of the party’s key disciplinarian roles – after reportedly groping two men at a Tory private members’ club.
The low-profile Pincher has at last achieved the distinction of becoming a household name beyond his own household, but only by getting so drunk that he could barely stand up and then allegedly allowing his hands to wander into places they should never have ventured.
There is no excuse for physical harassment, not even the one he advanced in his resignation letter to Johnson: “Last night I drank far too much.”
GIVEN that this latest scandal has erupted so soon after the disastrous consequences of sleazy behaviour by two other now former MPs – the Commons chamber porn-watcher Neil Parish and Imran Ahmad Khan who was jailed for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy – Johnson would be forgiven for holding his head in his hands.
Both those scandals led to byelection defeats that were at least in part motivated by the disgust of voters about the conduct of former representatives.
As we saw in Tiverton & Honiton, where the Tories lost a majority of 24,000, by-election reverses can hit a mid-term government in seats that are meant to be rock solid as well as in marginals. So Pincher’s near20,000 majority in Tamworth offers little grounds for comfort should this case result in another election.
Those keen observers of politics who keep a tally on these things will also recall that another mighty majority was lost in North Shropshire after the long-serving Tory Owen Paterson resigned during a financial sleaze row.
The Somerton & Frome MP David Warburton has had the party whip suspended and is under investigation for various matters, while another unnamed Tory MP is staying away from the Commons while police probe allegations of rape and sexual assault.
Then there is the ongoing case of Jamie Wallis, the Bridgend MP who came out as transsexual amid a police investigation into alleged motoring offences to which he recently entered not guilty pleas at a magistrates’ court hearing.
These cases would dismay grassroots Tory supporters at the best of times and – in case Conservative parliamentarians had not noticed – these are not the best of times.
With near double-digit inflation, falling living standards, a major land war in Europe and basic public services struggling to recover post-pandemic, the electorate’s tolerance of misbehaviour among those elected into public office is understandably extremely limited.
U‘The electorate’s tolerance of misbehaviour in office is limited’
NDER such circumstances any Conservative prime minister would be struggling to get a hearing for his policies. At least Johnson does not give off a defeatist vibe, such as that which emanated from Sir John Major when a series of sleaze scandals engulfed his MPs soon after he launched his disastrous “back to basics” moral crusade in the 1990s .
And unlike in the case of Major, whose economic strategy of hitching sterling to the Deutsche Mark had collapsed during the ERM debacle, Johnson’s central goal of levelling-up Britain by ploughing extra investment into leftbehind towns and regions has plenty of life in it.
This prime minister is also a proven charismatic campaigner and is pitched against a Labour leader who lacks that distinction. Rather than imagining that a Liz Truss or a Rishi Sunak, still less a Jeremy Hunt or a Tom Tugendhat, could magically restore Conservative fortunes, Tory MPs would do better to get behind the team captain.
One part of that is calling a halt to the endless half-baked plots against him. But an equally important part is for every Conservative MP to resolve to uphold high standards and ensure that they are not the one to let the side down.
They have no divine right to govern Britain and it is facile of them to think that changing leaders will necessarily impress voters. Instead they must apply the challenge they are all too fond of making to Johnson: shape up or ship out.