One month on: 9 things we’ve learned since
Britain’s Tories went into meltdown
Boris Johnson’s defenestration — and the race to
replace him — has thrown up all sorts of surprises.
BY MATT
HONEYCOMBE-FOSTER
August 1,
2022 4:05 am
Blink and
you might have missed it.
In just one
month, Boris Johnson has gone from the top dog in British politics to
yesterday’s man — and the bitter contest to succeed him is now in full flow,
with Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss tearing chunks out of each other.
Johnson’s
authority had been sapping away for months, but few would have predicted the
speed with which the botched handling of a sexual harassment scandal at the end
of June would call time on Johnson’s premiership, and kick off a ferocious
fight for the future of the country. Here are nine things we’ve learned in a
tumultuous, historic — and sometimes pretty confounding — month in British
politics.
Johnson was
not so Teflon after all
The
received wisdom in Westminster had it that Johnson’s flaws — better at
campaigning than governing, a chaotic personal life, and a looseness with the
truth — were “priced in” by voters and Conservative MPs, part of the deal in
picking a colorful leader who can connect with voters and push through big
ideas.
Even this
year, as Johnson’s government reeled from a scandal over boozy COVID
rule-breaching parties, few pundits would have staked their reputations on the
prime minister actually going any time soon. Indeed, Johnson himself was riling
up his detractors less than six weeks ago by letting it be known he was already
planning for a third term in office — despite not yet winning a second.
Yet months
of disarray — including Partygate, a string of election losses, and the
mounting cost of living hitting voters hard — had a cumulative effect, chipping
away at the PM’s authority and allowing the Chris Pincher scandal (more in a
moment) to deal the final blow.
In
politics, it’s the cover-up that gets you every time
In purely
political terms, the Pincher scandal looked survivable for Johnson. Accused of
drunkenly groping two men at an event in West London, Deputy Chief Whip Pincher
— a key ally of the prime minister — quit immediately.
Yet it’s
what came next that really did it for Johnson. The prime minister, who had form
in prevaricating over the fate of scandal-hit allies, initially declined to
suspend Pincher from the Conservative Party.
It got
worse. Downing Street repeatedly shifted its line on whether Johnson had been
made aware of allegations against Pincher at the time he was promoted to the
senior government enforcement role. A host of new allegations — all denied by
Pincher — then emerged, while Johnson had to contend with the claim he’d made
an off-color quip about a man he reportedly dubbed “Pincher by name, pincher by
nature.”
What could
have been a painful weekend for the government turned into a week-long scandal,
derailing government announcements and spotlighting all of Johnson’s worst
tendencies in the eyes of fed-up lawmakers.
Sexual
misconduct by MPs is still a national scandal
The Pincher
saga threw another grim aspect of Westminster life into sharp relief: sexual
harassment and abuse remains rife in the corridors of power.
As claim
after claim against Pincher was aired, staffers, trade unions and MPs
themselves demanded fresh action to overhaul a culture that they warn keeps on
letting down people who should be able to go to work without fearing for their
safety.
Despite
baby steps to better protect staff in recent years, the Pincher saga capped off
an inglorious run. It came hard on the heels of two by-elections triggered by,
in turn, an MP being convicted of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old, and a
lawmaker resigning after being caught watching porn in the House of Commons
chamber.
Tory MPs
are ruthless as hell
In case
you’ve lost count, the Conservatives are now searching for their fourth leader
in just six years, having defenestrated David Cameron, Theresa May and now
Johnson in rapid succession.
It’s long
been held in Westminster that the Tories are much more efficient at dispatching
underperforming leaders than the opposition Labour Party, which tends to hang
on to a vote-loser until the public does the job for them at a general
election.
Yet the
vigor of the Conservative coup this time around has been something to behold —
a record-breaking number of government resignations from the top to the bottom;
wounding personal criticism of Johnson on the national airwaves; and a round of
leadership contenders who can barely utter his name, all show that the party
has lost none of its bloodlust.
Rishi Sunak
and Liz Truss beware.
Leadership
contests are crazily unpredictable
From
frontrunner Ken Clarke dropping the ball in 2001 to Johnson torpedoing his own
leadership bid in 2016, Conservative leadership contests have long been the
scene of high drama.
But the
first few weeks of the latest battle have been unpredictable even by Tory
standards. Big names like Jeremy Hunt, Nadhim Zahawi and Sajid Javid all
crashed out early after failing to gain real momentum, while long-shots Kemi
Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat were elevated to kingmaker status after
outperforming expectations.
Perhaps the
most dramatic story arc of the race so far has been the meteoric rise and fall
of Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt, who bowled over Conservative members and
chased ex-Chancellor Sunak for the final two, only to be eclipsed by Foreign
Secretary Liz Truss in the final stage of the campaign’s first round.
Policy
still matters
Brexit
hasn’t gone away, but this time around it feels a lot less important when it
comes to wooing Conservative members.
Instead,
Truss and Sunak are locked in a battle over the future of the British economy,
with the pair trading blows over tax-and-spend, the cost of living, and the
state of the country’s public services (when they’re not summoning Margaret
Thatcher’s ghost to their side, or indulging in a bit of identity politics, of
course.)
While both
are avowed free-marketeers, Sunak and Truss’ economic plans do diverge sharply
— showing that there’s still an ideological debate to be had inside the
Conservatives that isn’t just about closeness or otherwise with the European
Union.
TV debates
can still be utterly compelling to watch
Political
journalists would be forgiven for a collective eye-roll at the prospect of
covering a summer of prime-time Conservative leadership debates — yet the
result has been some genuinely fascinating television that’s helped illuminate
the choice before Tory members.
From
candidates being asked directly whether Johnson is an honest man to a debate
moderator collapsing on set, the clashes haven’t been wanting for raw drama.
But they’ve
also brought the candidates’ relative strengths and weaknesses to the fore,
with Truss defying expectations in her first one-to-one match-up with Sunak,
and the former chancellor’s reputation as a masterclass media performer taking
its fair share of knocks. The camera does not lie.
‘He who
wields the knife …’ is still a thing
It’s
another one of the great British political cliches: “He who wields the knife
never wears the crown.” The use of the phrase in Tory politics can be traced
back to Michael Heseltine, the Cabinet big beast who quit Thatcher’s top team
in the mid-1980s but failed to win over his party in the subsequent leadership
election and thereby take the throne.
The
Conservative party’s history since then shows that there is, in fact, plenty of
room at the top for a knife-wielder (Johnson himself did plenty to kill off
Theresa May’s government), but, on current polling, it looks like Sunak could
well be headed down the Heseltine route.
Sunak
played a decisive role in Johnson’s downfall, resigning in dramatic fashion
alongside colleague Javid, who swiftly found his own leadership campaign
floundering.
By
contrast, frontrunner Truss has stayed publicly loyal, sticking to her day job
as foreign secretary — and refusing to take aim at Johnson despite repeated
opportunities to do so. It isn’t doing her any harm.
Everyone
underestimated Liz Truss
Truss
started late, underwhelmed at her campaign launch, fumbled a televised
leadership debate, and came a distant third in the first round of voting among
Tory MPs.
As her
rival Mordaunt hoovered up backers, many in Westminster wondered if the
gaffe-prone foreign secretary was out for the count — yet she’s now the
overwhelming favorite to become Britain’s next prime minister. Shows
what we all know.
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