Losing his grip?

Boris Johnson is a

Boris Johnson is a politician unlike any other. His rise to
No. 10 has been unhindered by a succession of scandals in his
personal and professional life, prompting Bloomberg^[1] to label him “Britain’s
Teflon leader”.

But after three weeks of particularly damaging headlines,
Conservative MPs are beginning to wonder whether scratches are
finally beginning to show on his non-stick surface.

His mishandling of the
parliamentary “sleaze” scandal^[2]
has won him few friends in Westminster, while the government’s new plans
for HS2^[3] – which has amounted to
a significant scaling back of election promises – have angered
northern leaders and “red wall” Tory MPs.

Following a bruising Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) this
week, Johnson faced furious Conservative backbenchers at a meeting
of the 1922 Committee.

One Tory MP gave a brutal appraisal of the grilling, telling
BBC^[4]
political editor Laura Kuennsberg that Johnson “looked weak and
sounded weak”, adding that his “authority is evaporating”.

Losing his grip?

Johnson is a “proven election-winning machine”, but the
“question nagging” at Conservative MPs is whether he can “turn
things around and reunite his demoralised party” following a
succession of scandals, said the Financial
Times^[5].

The prime minister has said – behind closed doors – that he
“crashed the car” over the Owen Paterson
debacle^[6] in an “admirably frank”
admission. But many are “wondering how the accident happened in the
first place”.

Senior party members have pointed to his circle of advisers,
deriding cabinet ministers as acting like “nodding dogs”, the paper
added. Others said that his No. 10 team is “currently too
weak”, arguing that Chief of Staff Dan Rosenfield and Cabinet
Secretary Simon Case have “failed to avert recent political
pile-ups”.

Tory MPs have also voiced concern that Johnson’s political
strategy is becoming increasingly “hard to discern”.

A “particularly bad” PMQs underlined Johnson’s “poor grip” on
both the second jobs row “but on other aspects of his own job”,
said Isabel Hardman in The Spectator^[7]. 

The prime minister complained that Keir Starmer had been offered
work by the law firm Mishcon de Reya, “in effect suggesting that
while the Tories were bad, so were their opponents,” she
added. But “it’s hardly inspiring stuff when a politician
starts to resort to this kind of deflection”.

And while Johnson’s “bad-tempered” performance “rang alarm
bells” with parliamentary colleagues, said Katy Balls
in The Guardian^[8], “the clearest indicator
of how Johnson’s standing has fallen” was “how few MPs bothered to
show up to support him”. 

On the Conservative benches behind him, “large patches of green
leather were visible” in a “stark illustration” that the party is
divided and that “Johnson’s MPs currently feel little loyalty
towards their leader”, Balls, The Spectator’s political editor,
added.

The divide in the Tory party over the handling of the Paterson
scandal is obvious, with his 2019 intake of MPs particularly
worried the row plays into the “Tory toff” stereotype, she
added.  But “no one is seriously talking about replacing him
anytime soon”, said Balls.

“MPs are upset with their leader but they are not about to
abandon him completely.”

Electorally, the only way Johnson’s administration will come
under “serious” threat is if it can be “shown to be failing on its
delivery of key pledges to the voters who backed them in 2019”,
said Alex Wickham in Politico’s London
Playbook^[9]. 

A scoop in the Health Service
Journal^[10] revealing that a
government watchdog warned Johnson’s promise to build 40 new
hospitals by 2030 is “unachievable” could cause him “huge trouble”,
Wickham added. “You can bet Starmer will spend 2022 making
Tory 2019 manifesto promises vs. reality a key theme in British
politics.”

On Conservative
Home^[11] Bim Afolami, a
Conservative MP and adviser to Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, spoke
of his concerns. “The danger of this political moment is that the
Conservative government may be close to losing a very precious
thing – the benefit of the doubt,” he said. 

“Memories of the vaccine bounce have long faded,” while taxes
“have risen and are due to rise further”.

The government needs to “show we are focused on delivering for
the public” or be doomed to go the way of previous long-running
Conservative administrations, he added – “a gradual and then
sudden decline into defeat”.