Boris Johnson joins a list of plotted-against prime ministers that includes Harold Wilson, Margaret Thatcher and Gordon Brown
The “pork pie putsch”, named in reference to Alicia Kearns, the Melton Mowbray MP allegedly seeking to topple Boris Johnson, is part of a long tradition of British political conspiracy.
It is the lot of a modern British prime minister not just to govern, but to survive relentless internal intrigue, some hatched in Midlands curry houses, some in Commons tearooms, and some in country houses or on the boundaries of a Test match at Lord’s.