The man 28

Like an answer to a maiden’s prayer, the only politically heavyweight alpha male in the British parliamentary Conservative Party, Boris Johnson, has responded to our cri de coeur and is at last taking action to lead the party and the country. (See our post of two days ago, Cometh the hour, cometh the man?, June 9, 2017.)

Or so some say. Apparently he has not yet said so himself. But many are expecting that he will, soon.

Could Johnson be the man to save the Tories in their hour of desperation? Certainly he remains one of the few front-rank politicians who can change the atmosphere just by turning up to the local shopping centre.

From the Mail on Sunday:

Boris Johnson is preparing a new bid to become Prime Minister as Theresa May’s grip on No 10 becomes increasingly fragile. …

Talk of his leadership bid came as Mrs May was rocked by the resignations of the two Downing Street advisers who have been blamed for the Election disaster – and a Mail on Sunday poll which found that half of voters want her to quit. …

Mrs May last night won the backing of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist MPs in order to shore up her precarious position, in a deal that would offer her the prospect of a working majority in the Commons.

The MoS Survation poll found that 49 per cent of all voters want Mrs May to resign, with only 38 per cent wanting her to stay put. And out of the contenders to replace her, Mr Johnson outscores his nearest rival, Chancellor Philip Hammond, by a margin of more than two to one.

A separate survey of Tory supporters by the Conservative Home website found that two-thirds wanted Mrs May to announce her resignation immediately.

Few Tory MPs believe that Mrs May will still be in No 10 by the end of the summer after losing 13 Tory seats – squandering the party’s previous working majority of 12.

Mrs May’s joint chiefs of staff, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, stepped down yesterday amid growing criticism of the power which they wielded in Downing Street. …

The aides have also been blamed by MPs and aides for creating a ‘toxic’ Downing Street in which officials and Ministers are subject to bullying. …

A total of 41 per cent of voters think that if she does resign, she should do so immediately.

If she does quit, Mr Johnson is the clear favourite to succeed her.  …

Boris Johnson once said: “All politicians are like crazed wasps in a jam jar, each individually convinced that they’re going to make it.”

And no one has been more convinced he is going to make it all the way to No 10 than Johnson himself. He has long considered himself a Prime-Minister-in-waiting, but has been obliged to wait far longer than he hoped.

For 11 years, he watched as the Tory Party was led by David Cameron, whom at Eton and Oxford Boris had viewed as an obscure and junior figure. …

And the parliamentary arithmetic now makes a return to the polls within the next year more or less certain. As today’s poll for this paper shows, a majority of the public want May to go now, and Johnson is their preferred choice to succeed her.

This, then, should be Johnson’s moment. …

Can he pull it off? The days ahead will prove whether his wait is finally at an end.

We have had our differences of opinion with Mr. Johnson, do not like everything he has done and said while he has been Foreign Secretary, but recognize that he is THE MAN to take the lead in Brexit Britain now, in the twilight years of its secular (pre-Islamic) government.

Posted under Britain, Conservatism, United Kingdom by Jillian Becker on Sunday, June 11, 2017

Tagged with , , , , ,

This post has 28 comments.

Permalink