The Prime Ministers Who Destroyed the Tory Party: Boris Johnson, Part 6

We revisit a selection of articles from the past decade about the Conservative Prime Ministers who have pursued a relentless shift to the left and ruined the party they led. This article was first published on 8 June 2022, under the headline “Tories must take off the blinkers and oust toxic Johnson now”.

The now lame-duck prime minister's supporters continue to be wrong. Aside from the few harebrained individuals who believe he can still work his magic and lead the Conservatives into another five years in government in 2024, Johnson's support comes from those who believe any alternative would be worse.

Not only are these people mistaken in their certainty, they are themselves morally compromised if they cannot grasp the simple fact that Boris Johnson is simply not fit to take on any leadership role – or to hold any public office.

Bruce Anderson in his perfectly worded commentary for the reaction The website explained on Monday exactly why it is time for the Tories to kick Johnson out, pointing to the events on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral last Friday when the prime minister and his wife Carrie arrived for the anniversary thanksgiving service.

He wrote: “The crowd outside St Paul's can hardly be taken as an opinion poll. Nevertheless, we can assume that they were not the sort of people who boo by nature. And yet they booed the Prime Minister. That is significant. Such aesthetic revulsion at the sight of Boris Johnson on the steps of the cathedral tells us what many of the ordinary people in England are thinking.

“Then followed a delicious example of dramatic irony. The Prime Minister was required to read the following passage: 'Whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasant, whatever is praiseworthy, if there is any excellence, and if there is anything worthy of praise – think on these things.'”

“We know that hypocrisy is the toll vice takes on virtue. Nevertheless, Boris should be congratulated for saying those words without, as the actors would say, corpsing. Speaking of corpsing, the Almighty should be congratulated for his restraint on the lightning bolts. Hypocrisy is surely the closest this Prime Minister will ever come to virtue.”

Anderson also explained why Johnson's lies were untenable: “The relationship between him and the party will always be contractual in nature… if they believe he will win an election, they will stick with him. If not, then they won't. At the moment, that is not the case at all.”

“The lies are part of it. When Boris was 17, his wise tutor, the distinguished classicist Martin Hammond, wrote to his father Stanley – not the ideal recipient – that his son should understand an important point. The chains of obligation that hold societies together should apply to him too.

“He never did. To be fair to him, this is not a question of him thinking he can do whatever he wants now that he is prime minister. He has always believed he can do whatever he wants – and not do what he doesn't want. The latter includes making up government policy.”

We at TCW have argued time and again that a man with such fundamental character flaws is not fit to be Prime Minister. He is where he is because he has “got away with it” time and time again.

His interview with Sky News fresh from losing the confidence of 42 per cent of Tory MPs, it was yet another such attempt – intoxicated by guile and audacity, to escape from what is for him merely the latest crisis in his drama-addicted lifestyle.

He may enjoy it, but MPs should no longer resign themselves to being supporting actors in his destructive dramas. It was a strange and uncomfortable display of bravado, the likes of which he no doubt tried out on his teachers at Eton.

Even in these days of disappointing politicians, institutionalised incompetence and stupidity, this performance by a sitting prime minister reached a new low. Let us hope it was his last. The past does have an uncanny ability to catch up with people in the end.

So what about the fear that “we'll get someone worse” – the name of ardent lockdown advocate Jeremy Hunt is the one that worries people most? Is that a sufficient argument for sticking with a leader who is so deeply flawed and whose word, as has been shown time and again, cannot be trusted? Leaving aside the fact that this is fallacious reasoning based on an unknown risk assessment – much like the General Medical Council saying we can't exclude Dr A for gross misconduct because Dr B, who gets his job, might be even worse.

Worse, such thinking prevents the few decent, moral and competent MPs from having any chance of replacing Johnson. It even prevents – and this is only the glimmer of a possibility – the chance of a man or woman emerging who will work to restore conservatism to the party and roll back the massive (and wasteful) authoritarian state and radical elitist policies developed under its aegis.

Anyone who succumbs to the illusion that Boris actually holds the thin blue line – a Horatio on the bridge defending true liberalism and conservatism – should have a serious head examination.

If we get it wrong again, what difference will it make? Andrew Cadman recently argued that the record of the last 50 years suggests that ever more radical, anti-democratic projects are being pushed through against the will of the people, the scale and audacity of which we can only imagine. So-called Conservative MPs should think carefully – do they really want to be allied with them?

Of course, if Johnson had any decency, he would follow the example of Margaret Thatcher, who won 204 votes in the 1990 election for leader, while Michael Heseltine received only 152.

This was not enough for Thatcher to overcome the two hurdles set out in the party's constitution. According to these, the winner had to receive more than 50 percent of the total votes and have a lead of 15 percent over the runner-up.

After initially declaring that she would run in a runoff election, she took stock and courageously sought the opinion of close colleagues.

One by one, they told her it was time to resign. She did. But she was also a woman of character – of decency, dignity, principles and moral courage. Boris Johnson is none of these things, but exactly as Anderson describes him: “A grotesque buffoon, fooling around as if he can't wait to get back to the next party at 10 Downing Street.”

He asks: “Is this the most worthless man ever to become Prime Minister? Morally speaking, Lloyd George was quite inferior, but he had other compensating qualities. Wilson was a useless Prime Minister, but a better man. Boris: There is only one summary. A man without any good qualities. It is time his party recognised this and redeemed itself.”

We agree.