Enough is enough: Johnson is toast

Well, they took their time, that is for sure, given how many lies have been told, cover-ups launched, acts of corruption, nepotism and incompetence tolerated. But fair play… Sajid Javid and Rishi Sunak have finally stepped up and delivered a message no leader ever wants to hear: Enough Is Enough.

As Rory Stewart said on the special episode of The Rest Is Politics we recorded on Tuesday, there is something fitting that it should be a grotesque act of male groping by a man named Pincher that provided the tipping point in the demise of as grotesque a character as Johnson.

How many times have I and others said on this site and in this paper that there is practically nobody alive less suited to the job of prime minister than Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson?

Nor is there anybody still alive, beyond Johnson and the remaining nodding dogs in Cabinet, who think that he can survive as far as another election. And even Nadine Dorries was a bit doubtful when Johnson recently said he had his eyes not just on a second term but a third. Frankly it is a first term in prison for misconduct in public office that he should be considering.

He exists to promote himself and his own interests. Always has and always will. He neither cares about so-called ordinary people, nor believes he is in office to help them. He is motivated by getting into scrapes and showing he can get out of them. And even now he will think he can.

But he is toast. To lose a chancellor and a former chancellor on the same day, with so few serious contenders as replacement in the cabinet, further weakens authority also damaged by the loss of confidence of three quarters of his backbenchers. Yes, he has survived failures and scandals that would have brought down others. But this is the normal gravitational laws of politics returning. If you lose the support of your MPs, your senior ministers and the public, you lose all authority. Johnson’s went some time ago. Tonight his party got the message that where the public led, and Tory backbenchers followed, finally the cabinet big beasts are waking up.

He has been the worst prime minister in history, kept alive by a second rate cabinet and a biased and large sections of third-rate press who no longer call government to account but cover up their lies for them. He has managed to exploit Covid and Ukraine sufficient to outstay his welcome. But he has no vision for Britain, no plan for Britain and no concern for the people of Britain and our real interest.

He is an ego, nothing more and nothing less, a narcissist who damages and debases everything he touches. An election may be his last shot. But he will lose it. And if the cabinet has any integrity left he won’t be in a position to be able to fight it.

My message tonight is very simple. You’re toast, Johnson. Now just fuck off before you do even more damage to a country to which you have done so much already.