A foregone conclusion?
Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson clashed in their first headto-head televised debate on Tuesday, but few expected the testy encounter to make much difference to the result of the leadership contest. Polls taken as Tory members received their postal ballots last week suggested that Johnson enjoyed a commanding lead over his rival, making it all but certain that he will be announced as the victor on 23 July.
As members began to receive their ballots, a BBC report claimed that Downing Street had sought to deny Johnson access to toplevel intelligence when he became foreign secretary in 2016, owing to concerns over his discretion. Johnson rubbished the claim, which his allies described as a clear establishment attempt to nobble his campaign. Hunt, meanwhile, ran into trouble on the campaign trail when he said he was “happy” for people to hunt foxes with hounds and would seek to overturn the ban. His remarks promoted an angry backlash, forcing him to backtrack.
What the editorials said
The only question that really matters in this contest, said The Times, is which candidate is more likely to deliver a Brexit deal. They both have strengths and weaknesses. Hunt is a capable minister with the “experience, intellectual grasp and attention to detail necessary for the job”. Johnson is altogether less reliable, but he does have one crucial quality: charisma. What’s more, he’s “a Brexiteer at a time when the party clearly wants to be led by one”. He may be the only person capable of convincing “hard-line colleagues to accept the compromises needed for an orderly EU exit”. It has to be Johnson, agreed The Daily Telegraph. Theresa May’s failed premiership has shown that only someone who genuinely believes in Brexit can lead this process.
Brexit is certainly all that the 160,000 Tory members who are voting in this ballot care about, said The Observer. Polls suggest they would willingly sacrifice both the economy and England’s union with Scotland on the altar of a no-deal exit ( see page 20). “The question that the 99.7% of voters who have no say are left with is: beyond Brexit at any cost, what on earth is the modern Conservative Party for?”
What the commentators said
Nobody could accuse Hunt of hiding away in this race, said Isabel Hardman in The Guardian. He has seized every bit of exposure he can get, but none of it seems to have done him much good. It’s partly because he started behind Johnson, who put in more preparatory work before the campaign. But he has also made unforced errors, such as his ill-judged fox hunting pledge. Johnson has slipped up too, of course, but the Tories, like indulgent parents, are more forgiving of his mistakes. Hunt is like the elder sibling who is “subject to stricter curfews and higher expectations”, while Boris is the younger one “who manages to sail into their mid-20s without knowing how to load a dishwasher or do their own laundry”. Hunt has also relied too much on marketing himself as the “un-Boris” candidate, said Robert Shrimsley in the FT. He has failed to make a positive case for his leadership – and a measure of that failure is “the extent to which the political and media establishment is now rallying round [his rival]”.
Assuming Johnson does win, he must be magnanimous in victory, said James Forsyth in The Spectator. He’s right to insist that the entire Cabinet would need to sign up to his policy of leaving the EU on 31 October, but given that he’d still be operating in a hung parliament, he’d need to keep his party as united as possible. “The magnanimity must go both ways, though.” Philip Hammond and other Remain-leaning cabinet ministers “must give Johnson’s Brexit plan a chance to work”. It will be interesting to see what kind of PM Johnson makes, said Bagehot in The Economist. We know from his time as London mayor that he does have “a talent for delegation”, but there are limits to how far this model can be applied to a job that, in its relentless demands, “has been likened to drinking from a fire hose”. Perhaps Johnson’s fans are right in thinking that their man possesses the necessary skill and charisma to cope with these demands and resolve the Brexit issue. But make no mistake: “If they land the country with its second dud prime minister in a row, their party may never recover.”
What next?
With most experts believing that Johnson’s victory is already in the bag, attention is turning to his future team. Home Secretary Sajid Javid, who endorsed Boris on Sunday, is positioning himself to be chancellor. Edward Lister, Johnson’s right-hand man when he was London mayor, has agreed to serve as his No. 10 chief of staff until at least the end of the year.
The first electoral test for the next PM will come on 1 August, with the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election. Pro-Remain parties are uniting behind a single candidate in a bid to reduce the Tories’ working majority to three.