Great unknown is how many Tories will knife leader in back
INCAPABLE of dealing with big issues, wobbling Boris Johnson will be selling The Big Issue if Conservative MPs do the right thing.
Tories in Westminster are the most duplicitous electorate in British politics, declarations of loyalty in public rendered meaningless by anonymous letters and confidence votes.
Waverers and sycophants alike will have watched in utter despair as a deranged Prime Minister, under investigation by the police, ranted and raved.
It was the most woeful, shameful and embarrassing performance by a Premier I’ve witnessed in more than three decades covering politics, stretching to Margaret Thatcher.
Ludicrously seeking to pin blame for Jimmy Savile on Keir Starmer – the Labour leader’s devastating takedown of Johnson clearly stinging – should have had doctors in white coats shepherding the PM to safety.
NIGHTMARE
Johnson undoubtedly lost friends and alienated people yet the great unknown remains how many mutineers will add their signatures to the estimated 20 or 30 Conservative MPs already demanding a ballot to oust the Prime Minister.
The magic number is 54 to trigger a contest then 180 to guarantee Johnson’s head on a silver platter to end the Partygate nightmare.
Damning evidence in civil servant Sue Gray’s censored report is merely the end of the beginning rather than the beginning of the end in a totemic scandal displaying why Johnson is unfit for high office.
It is going to get worse not better, with the police studying more than 300 photographs and 500 pieces of paper linked to a dirty dozen of potentially illegal parties.
These included one in the Downing Street flat and another with a birthday cake, plus a pair featuring a DJ and suitcase of booze on the eve of the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral.
Johnson initially refusing a past pledge to guarantee eventual publication of Gray’s full report smacks of panic.
Tory grandees Theresa May and Andrew Mitchell put the boot in viciously. Apologists defended the indefensible. The silent, brooding majority will determine Johnson’s fate.