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Good morning. Boris Johnson is expected to be campaigning in Tiverton and Honiton in Devon today, where in a fortnight’s time voters will be hearing the result of the byelection. The Lib Dems are now widely expected to win, and if they do, overturning a Tory majority of more than 24,000, it will be a dire blow to the Tories, even worse than the loss of North Shropshire, where the government majority was just under 23,000. It is not clear yet what Johnson might be doing in the constituency, but it would be nice to think that he will bump into the woman my colleague Peter Walker met when he was there yesterday.
Some Tories and commenatators think that the loss of Tiverton and Honiton (and also Wakefield, where there is another byelection on the same day) might trigger a fresh Tory attempt to remove Johnson. But this seems unlikely, since the party will still be less than three weeks on from the last no-confidence vote, and instead party conference in the autumn (and/or the publication of the privileges committee inquiry into claims Johnson lied to MPs about Partygate – possibly coming at roughly the same time) is being seen by some as the new deadline by which Johnson must either get a grip or face removal from office.
The investigation by the committee of privileges is still ongoing – it could easily come to some difficult conclusions and [Johnson] will face real problems if MPs, the party, and our voters can’t by then see a new positive agenda that would justify sticking with him as prime minister.
“Getting on with the job”, as he said at this week’s Cabinet, will not be enough if the new job is the same as the old job. If it is, the new boss will not be the same as the old boss …
