Boris Johnson joked this week that the main crime he’d committed in life was breaking the 70pmh motorway speed limit. In his speech he also said the UK was in “Grand Prix” shape but wasn’t yet “firing on all cylinders”. Petrolhead Boris certainly loves a fast car and it’s his promise to accelerate Brexit that is proving so attractive to Tory MPs and party members alike.
The sheer scale of Johnson’s lead means that lots of people now want to cram into the overcrowded back seat of his Maserati (though ColdWarSteve thinks he’s really driving a battered Ford Fiesta). The race to the door of his office in the Commons is well underway and there are plenty of Boris allies who think it would be for the good of the country to just end the leadership contest next week.
Boris’s 114 MPs was impressive given the size of the field. However, it’s worth remembering that Theresa May got a massive 165 MPs (50%) in the first ballot in 2016 - and that the subsequent lack of a leadership election or wider debate among party members meant that she was really untested for the rocky road ahead.
That’s why all of Johnson’s rivals are now pressuring him to sign up to a TV debate before the Tuesday ballot. When asked on the Today programme whether Boris Johnson would be a good prime minister, Jeremy Hunt replied: “I hope he would be. I don’t know the answer to that question in advance.” And one way to answer it is through the crucible of live, televised hustings and media interviews. Hunt added: “What would Churchill say?” about a potential PM going into ‘hiding’.
Yet Team Boris know that once they get to the final two on the ballot he really may be home and dry. Some around him think the risk of a TV debate is just too great right now. And on our CommonsPeople podcast, Boris backer Andrew Mitchell tells us: “Because he’s some way ahead so there’s no reason for him to debate with everybody I wouldn’t have thought…He may not agree to debate with (six) other candidates.” Mitchell added, however, that “Boris has never been shy of scrutiny or the media”. Let’s see.
The ‘best of the rest’ now need to clear the 33-supporter hurdle of the second ballot on Tuesday. There is a 1pm deadline today for candidates to indicate they will stay in the race and it looks increasingly like Matt Hancock will be the one to fall on his sword. Switching his support to Sajid Javid may be the only way to keep a ‘next generation, modernising’ Tory in the contest. He who dares wins, but he who dares switch quickly could decide the shape of this race.
The brute fact is that there are not a lot of votes to go around from those who were knocked out yesterday and it’s perfectly possible to imagine McVey and Leadsom backers opting for Boris. However, the Times reckons Leadsom herself is considering backing Javid, so she clearly must have liked the way he handled himself in Cabinet. A big Brexiteer like her coming on board would certainly boost the Home Secretary, whose ‘tortoise v hare’ narrative is helping him survive.
Right now, the prospect of virtually everyone caving in and backing Boris is not outlandish. Dominic Raab has vowed to fight on but he and others could get Cabinet posts (despite all this talk of no jobs being on offer) if they allow a coronation that lets Johnson get straight to work on a Brexit plan without a four week leadership race. Michael Gove, however, is unlikely to fold, especially as he wasn’t far behind Jeremy Hunt despite having the worst start of any candidate. Some secret polling evidence of members suggests both Gove and Javid could give Boris a run for his money.
But the lure of office may mean even Rory Stewart changes heart and serves under Johnson at some point. I speculated yesterday that Stewart would find it hard to resist the call to serve, despite having vowed not to join a Boris Cabinet. And in today’s Sun he says he could help deal with the chaos of a no-deal Brexit. “I would feel it was my duty, if he wanted me, to come back and help try to deal with the aftermath.”
Already this year, he’s had more parties than Paris Hilton, but Chuka Umunna doesn’t care. Yes, the Streatham MP has joined the Liberal Democrats, and has been honest enough to admit the whole Change UK idea was a big mistake. Umunna is nothing if not quixotic. I remember one Labour Party conference where he went straight from a left-wing Compass fringe to a centrist Progress rally, sparking suspicions in both groups that he was just a carpetbagging careerist. And who could forget his makeshift, windswept Labour leadership video, only to quit the race a few days later?
In an interview with the Times, he defends himself from the charge that the only party that matters is the Chuka Umunna party. “You don’t leave all of the political security of what are the two main parties if you’re out for self-advancement. And I’m not sure what more I could do to prove that I’m not, not a careerist.”
Still, his habit of trying things on for size, then swiftly changing his mind suggests Umunna is the political equivalent of an ASOS clothes junkie, a ‘serial returner’ who keeps sending back the items that looked so attractive in the heat of the moment. How long will he remain a Lib Dem? He will hope he has a fighting chance of keeping his Streatham seat, given the large Remain vote (and I recall in 2010 the Libs came very close to winning). But you can bet Labour will be pushing the betrayal narrative hard to the local community.
The Lib Dems are certainly ramming home their dominance among Remain voters right now and it feels like only a matter of time before other Tiggers follow suit. Meanwhile, the chaos of Change UK was underlined yesterday when the party of Labour and Tory defectors had to change its name a third time after a legal challenge from the campaigning group change.org. They are now ‘The Independent Group for Change’ aka TIG FC. Which sounds like a Sunday football league team.
Watch this newly released, uncensored footage from Have I Got News For You, dropped during court proceedings on Boris Johnson’s alleged misconduct in public office. The Tom Bradby interview made me particularly nostalgic.
On the second anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire that took 74 lives, communities secretary James Brokenshire and London Mayor Sadiq Khan will attend a church service in north Kensington this morning. Our front page splash reveals that thousands of faulty fire doors have still not been replaced despite promises made after the disaster.
Dangerous Grenfell Tower-style cladding also remains on 328 high-rise buildings, the latest official figures show. Only 105 of 433 buildings in England above 18 metres have been stripped of aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding, data published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government this week reveals.
On Question Time last night we had three politicians admit to their past soft drug use. Tory Theresa Villiers tried cannabis three times at uni: “The last time I managed to inhale and was promptly sick.” Labour’s Stephen Kinnock on his west London comp: “About half of the intake in that school was smoking weed, and I was part of that half.”
Plaid Cymru’s Adam Price: “As a gay man who first went clubbing in the 1990s, it would be a bit of a surprise if I hadn’t taken drugs.” But the most sobering contribution was from the Brexit Party’s Mark Reckless: “I haven’t drunk alcohol for five or six years. I think alcohol is a very dangerous drug because it is so normalized in society.”
COMMONS PEOPLE
Former Cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell joined us on our Commons People podcast this week. A veteran ‘numbers man’ for John Major and David Davis in previous leadership campaigns, he lifts the lid on some of the skulduggery involved. Oh, and he has an inside track on one of our weekly quiz questions. Click HERE to listen on Android/audioboom and below for iTunes.
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