Today will be Johnson’s last PMQs as PM
Was it PMQs that helped bring him down?
No doubt over the next year or so we are going to see a series of academic and other studies on the downfall of Johnson who, of course, at GE2019 had the best Tory general election outcome since the Thatcher era.
Arguably PMQs had its part to play his exit and it was some of his PMQ responses on “partygate” which potentially were troublesome for him. His flat assertions about the lockdown rules being followed were always going to be hard to stand up
I began covering PMQs back in 1972 for Radio 4’s Today in Parliament programme. Then, of course, there were no live broadcasts and pre-GE1997 there were two 15 minute sessions a week compared with the one we have now.
Of the PM’s in that time Johnson did reasonably well but he wasn’t in the Tony Blair or Maggie Thatcher class. I rate Wilson quite highly as well as Jim Callaghan.