This is Iain Martin’s weekly newsletter for Reaction subscribers.
This edition of my weekly newsletter is dedicated to the very wealthy American who told me at dinner this week that Boris Johnson would never resign and would go on to be the longest-serving British Prime Minister of all time. After googling Lord North and Robert Walpole he doubled down on his assertion. Boris was a winner and he would outlast all of those guys, he assured me.
When I demurred and said this was unlikely because it was game over for Boris Johnson, as I’ve been saying for many months, because any remaining benefit of the doubt was lost with all bar his most devoted fans, and that Bojo was completely buggered, as I wrote for Reaction subscribers back on 15 January, he thought for a moment. No, said the very wealthy American, Boris is a winner. He will outlast all those other Prime Ministers, you’ll see.
Whoever is giving that guy’s hedge fund political advice should be fired.
In the end, Boris finishes among the shorter serving British Prime Ministers. His third anniversary falls in a fortnight or so on 24 July. If he makes it into early August, because the Tory leadership contest may take time, then he’ll have just, by days, beaten Theresa May, who served three years and one week.
This is no small matter. Prime Ministers are always obsessed with the length of tenure; something to do with passing the portraits of their predecessors on the stairs of Number 10 several times a day. They all become fixated on legacy and the notion of being remembered in history once we – voters, pesky journalists, rivals who fell short of the top job – are all long gone and forgotten.
David Cameron, and ultra-competitive David Cameron will love this, thrashes Boris in the premiership longevity stakes. Cameron’s stint in Number 10 was six years and two months long. Around double Boris’s tenure.
There’s no need to reiterate the reasons the Johnson administration blew up. We’re all more than familiar with the arguments. Although he’s an exceptional campaigner, someone who managed to connect with groups of voters not traditionally inclined to back the Tories, in the end, it wasn’t enough.
Even though he smashed a way out of the EU when some Remainers were trying to overturn the referendum, he was simply incapable of providing decent government. This was a story of personality and an inability to master detail and project dignity.
Some of Johnson’s most vehement critics are drawing the wrong lesson. Rory Stewart, the ultra-liberal former Tory, who was bested by Boris in the leadership contest of 2019, promoted his podcast with the following tweet:
“Boris Johnson should mark the final end of the old British system. He demonstrated ruthlessly how much damage can be done by someone refusing to respect unwritten rules. We need a written constitution. A new electoral system. And far better leaders.”
For this Stewart was applauded to the echo on Twitter, naturally, because it’s the kind of nonsense that is applauded on Twitter.
What has just happened vindicates the flexibility of the British parliamentary system. It would be daft to claim that it is perfect, or innately superior to all other systems, but in its strange and messy way it works.
Boris Johnson, especially towards the end, tried to behave as though he had a personal, presidential mandate. He does not. Johnson led the largest party in parliament, and in this system, the leader who is inept enough to lose the support of their parliamentary party and/or parliament gets the boot or is forced to resign. Bye-bye Boris!
What would a written constitution have achieved or done better? Its provisions might even have contained poorly-drawn rules that would embed a duff leader, or make it more difficult to get a wrong ‘un out. The British uncodified set-up enables the largest party to get it done.
In under a year, sufficient numbers of Tory MPs came to the inevitable conclusion that Boris was too disorganised and deceitful to merit continued support. They were influenced by public opinion and they used their own judgment. The Prime Minister’s position became untenable. He’s going.
Even an early back me or sack me general election, threatened by Boris’s most slavish supporters, would not have been possible as an escape route. The Queen would not have allowed it, and a simple series of questions would have seen it off.
Tell me, Prime Minister, the cabinet agrees with this election you want to call? They’ll confirm that when I call the Chancellor, and Foreign Secretary? If you’re unhappy, is there someone else who might command a majority and form a government considering the Conservatives have a large majority?
No-one should relax on this until the car containing Boris Johnson is pictured driving him away from the Palace, with him having handed in his Prime Ministerial pass. But he’s going.
Boris was boxed in by the British constitution. The system worked.
Tears for beers
Boris Johnson must be kicking himself that he did not relocate his Downing Street operation to County Durham in the north of England. That way he could have avoided being fined over Partygate and his premiership may not have unravelled in the way it did.
Starmer did his Covid “work events” in Durham, complete with beers and curry, and the cops decided not to fine him after an investigation. The Boris parties were in London, and the Metropolitan Police handed out fines to Team Boris.
Back when Boris was in his pomp, the House of Lords used to be threatened with being moved to Stoke or further north. This was quite extraordinary constitutional vandalism. Not because there is anything wrong with Stoke, it’s a tremendous if much put upon place, but because the Lords is part of parliament.
The two chambers sit next to each other for a reason. Legislation is transacted back and forth down the corridor. Compromises are negotiated. Messages are sent. Johnson might have found the Lords annoying, but for a Tory Prime Minister to threaten the institution in such a way made for a grim spectacle.
When Boris Johnson the vandal was having fun winding up the Lords, he could have instead spent the time taking his own levelling up agenda more seriously. Moving Downing Street to Durham could have been part of the plan. If he had done this he might not be heading out of Number 10 so soon.
Them’s the breaks, as someone put it.
Who’s next?
I don’t know. And anyone who tells you they do know who the next British Prime Minister is going to be is lying, making it up or plain guessing. Genuinely, this is a wide-open race with a Grand National-style list of potential runners and a lot of scope for falls, disasters, lucky breaks and surprise winners as they are whittled down to the final two.
In theory, the Tory membership then decides, although it may all speed up if the top contenders do a deal.
Rishi Sunak would once have been the front-runner. No longer, following his decisions on taxation.
Ben Wallace is consulting allies on whether to run, it is said.
Kemi Badenoch – who I flagged as the potential Thatcher 2.0 – has declared she is standing “to tell the truth.”
Liz Truss is going for it and will run as the Thatcherite. She has enthusiastic backers. Can she convince voters?
One subscriber to Reaction has messaged me saying he will emigrate if Truss wins, which seems harsh. However, I may emigrate if Steve Baker or Suella Braverman win.
John Baron is mulling a run. Sorry, what? Who is John Baron? Was he, I hear you ask, in the 1960s/1970s British comedy group the Barron Knights? No, he’s a hitherto low-key Tory MP who astonished viewers of the BBC this week by saying, when asked who he would back, that he might back himself to run.
It won’t be John Baron.
When in Naples
Nothing will happen in early to mid-July, we said. Let’s get away a little earlier this year for a few days to beat the holiday rush, we said. It’s not as though anything major will happen, like a Prime Ministerial resignation.
Oh.
This means I’m writing this newsletter in Naples, where we’ve escaped for a few days.
One of the glories of the place, along with the food, views and frayed around the edges architecture, is that for all its tough reputation Naples isn’t a rip-off when it comes to the small things.
In Britain, we’ve become so used to paying ridiculous amounts for a pint or a round of drinks anywhere half decent in a big city that we think this is true everywhere. It’s not. Sit down in the elegant quarter beyond the Royal Palace for a view across the Bay of Naples, and order freshly squeezed limonata and a coffee and the bill that results is modest. Order a chilled bottle of beer next to the pool and it costs three euros.
No, this is nothing to do with Brexit and the cost of importing Italian-branded lager, which in Britain is probably brewed in Britain anyway.
Clearly, there’s something about the business model of our city centres that’s out of whack. Whether it’s rates, or property prices, or grasping chains to blame, it all costs too much.
The Italians get it right. Make mine a Birra Moretti.
What I’m reading
The books I’ve brought on holiday. But let’s face it, that’s not true. While I should be reading the books I brought on holiday, so far I haven’t opened any of them because political/media Twitter and WhatsApp are too interesting.
And the books? Isabel Colegate’s The Shooting Party. I’ve still to finish the Colin Jones account of the downfall of Robespierre, all taking place over 24 hours. It’s almost as dramatic as the fall of Boris.
I brought my friend Alexander McCall Smith’s latest Scotland Street novel. And John Bew’s masterful biography of Attlee to re-read or at least dip into.
Have a good weekend.
