Were you up for Boris Johnson?
His constituency might be why Boris Johnson resigns as PM before the next election
I’ve been following UK general elections from 1992 onwards, so that’s eight general election nights (the last three of which have been when I was in the editor’s chair of PB) and in my humble opinion the most memorable and seminal moment was at the 1997 general election when Michael Portillo lost his seat of Enfield Southgate. In a moment Portillo went from likely successor to John Major to unemployed, just like that. It led to countless articles and even a book entitled ‘Were you for Portillo?’
Nothing since before or after that has come close to the Portillo moment, the closest to that was probably Alex Salmond losing Gordon to the Conservatives at the 2017 general election, a very profitable night for anyone who followed my 20/1 tip on the Scottish Conservatives to win over 9.5 seats. The next Prime Minister Jo Swinson losing her seat at the 2019 general election really doesn’t count.
But there might be one moment at the next general election that would the Portillo moment on speed, a sitting Prime Minister losing his seat. As we can see at the 2019 election Boris Johnson had a healthy majority of 7,210 but recent polls show him losing his seat (some with the boundary changes.)
Even before the polls started showing regular double digit Labour leads is the re-emergence what would concern Boris Johnson, the tactical anti-Conservative voting, there’s not much on the right for him to squeeze, but Labour has 4,000 Liberal Democrats and Green voters to squeeze, who I’m sure would love to see the Prime Minister to lose his seat.
Even if there is some sort of swingback to the Conservatives I’d still say Boris Johnson would be at risk in his seat. London is likely to be least fertile part of England for the Conservatives long term, Brexit and the profile of the big cities is likely to ensure that.
Boris Johnson has a history of cowardice, he avoided the 2016 Conservative leadership contest knowing he’d be humiliated after Michael Gove showed Boris Johnson the loyalty that Boris Johnson has shown his wives , Boris Johnson also hid in a fridge to avoid scrutiny, ran away to Afghanistan to avoid sticking to his past comments on Heathrow expansion, and just this last week sent Michael Ellis to respond to the urgent question about the Number 10 parties, so it wouldn’t be a shock if he takes the easy way out and stands down as an MP to avoid a humiliation and punishment that would be on a par with hiring 500 dominatrices concurrently and having ‘mower’ as your safe word.
I rule out Boris Johnson doing a chicken run to a safer constituency, he certainly has the chutzpah to do such a thing, but I think Conservative MPs would oust him if he tried such a thing as it would send out a terrible sign about the chances of them holding their own seats, so they might replace him with someone who may help them hold their seats.
With Boris Johnson having a desire to be liked, I’m sure he’s not currently enjoying the opprobrium heaped upon him, he doesn’t want to go down as the Prime Minister who lost his own seat. His ratings are so dire that he’s polling as bad/worse than Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May at the nadir of their leaderships.
It has struck me how much these parties and that gratuitous insults aimed at Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II have spread to my normally non political friends and WhatsApp groups. The anger, piss taking, and memes have spread exponentially.
To normal apolitical people Boris Johnson is seen as worse than Fred West, to give Fred West his dues, he finally admitted to having people in his garden. Prime Ministers seldom recover when their ratings sink this low and are mercilessly mocked by the voters.
TSE