So what now?
What the Tories choose to do next matters - to Labour as much as to everyone else.
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So we have reached the end. That the Johnson premiership would crash and burn in flames of embarrassment was inevitable even if it didn’t always feel like it would. That’s what he does: he fails embarrassingly. That we didn’t know what form that failure would take or quite how bad it would look does not mean it wasn’t always coming. Those writing quite recent hagiographies predicting a decade of this failure of a human in power should have known better then. But they have probably still learned nothing - not while not learning remains a lucrative option.
But though he still resides in number ten - like the Squatter he once called Gordon Brown only significantly less dignified or wanted - Johnson is not the story here.
The question now is who are the Tories. What do they believe and how will they try to pitch those beliefs to the country? Who do they appeal to and can they continue to appeal to a broad enough group to claim leadership and power in the country?
At the start of the year, I wrote for the Times that one of the reasons the Tories were reluctant to get rid of Boris was that doing so would force them to choose between the contradictions he somehow managed to get away with.
There has been much breathless talk over the years of the ‘electoral magic’ of Johnson as if his two-faced cakeism was something special. The truth is it was nothing of the kind. Johnson was a master at it, true. But promising contradictory things to different audiences is frequently a winning strategy for elections but one that falls apart spectacularly on contact with a need to govern. This is precisely what happened to the Lib Dems when forced to pick a side in coalition, for example.
Johnson largely got around this by never actually doing any governing in the long term. There were two modes to his reign - emergency response which he was largely forced into by circumstances and campaigning mode where he would set up dividing lines with a baffled, embattled and cornered Labour who were too terrified to pick a side - never mind fight back.
Where we were all quite lucky is that there were aspects of the pandemic response that actually worked better as a campaign than they would have done deatlt with as part of a functioning government beauracracy. We should recognise that on some aspects of procurement and the vaccine programme going hell for leather in a very ‘un-civil service’ way helped to achieve momentous gains. At the same time, we should also acknowledge that this approach also led to those programmes that were not short, sharp interventions, but that needed to work over time to be abused or fail in some quite scandalous ways. Johnson won’t be around as the long-term consequences of these play out. In many ways, perhaps the greased piglet has escaped judgment again.
Once the pandemic was on the wane in terms of immediate and swift response and moved into a long term management phase, the government pretty much lost interest. War broke out in Ukraine which gave them the cover they needed to just stop talking about the ongoing health crisis. There was a new immediate campaign to be waged - one that could make Johnson’s Churchill cos-play seem even more delicious to him and his supporters. Volodymyr Zelenskyy is - perfectly fairly - saddened at losing his close ally. However strategically he may be better off with a Tory Party fighting to replace this Boris’s attitude to the war in Ukraine (which is one of the few areas he is still well regarded with Tories and the public in general) and not the one one who would have inevitably lost interest when it faded from the headlines and the glamour was replaced by grind.
If the fault of being focused on campaigning rather than governing were Johnson’s alone this would be less of an existential crisis for the Tories. No leader has all the qualities required to run a whole country. They are always far greater than any human can provide alone. A good leader has the humility, confidence and self knowledge to ensure that the qualities they lack are made up for by those they surround themselves with.
Sadly Boris is lacking in all three of those qualities. I know many of my readers will take issue with my claiming he is unconfident, but what else would you call surrounding yourself with alsorans you know to be incapable of doing the top job? If he had been more confident in his governing abilities he would have been happy to let others shine while supporting him. But in truth, any who did shine - by accident or design were viciously briefed against and brought down. He may project bombastic confidence but he never actually acted with it.
This has left the party and government with a dearth of talent at the top or experience on the backbenchers. Loyalty and combative aggression - as demonstrated by talent-free zombie ministers such as Nadine Dorries or Jacob Rees Mogg - were prized over grip or ability to get things done. Being an impressively arsy arse on the Today Programme meant far more to many in government than actually getting on with things. So nothing has progressed.
Take ‘Levelling Up’ - considered the government’s flagship programme. The issue they care about most in the world. The White Paper on it was much delayed and then didn’t really say anything much when it arrived. It was more a philosophy of levelling up than a programme for doing so. There was little that was tangible or deliverable. It was all slogans and no governance. It was - in other words - very Johnsonian.
We are already hearing a great deal about tax cuts from the various candidates. Of course we are - they’re running to be leader of the Tories and no matter how knackered the state nor how cut to the bone services already are, you just don’t do that without promising taxs cuts - whether you have any intention of delivering them, this catchetism is the price of entry into the race.
What journalists should be asking isn’t “Are you promising to cut taxes” because of course they are. But the way they answer any follow up questions will matter considerably more. Tax cuts are a proxy for a deeper discussion about the state./ What needs to be investigated much further is how - or even if - they intend to govern. What they want to do with the power of office if handed it? What their approach to government building is and looks like.
Will they build a strong cabinet that includes those they know to be their rivals? If so, how will they negotiate ideological differences to ensure agreement on and delivery of governmental priorities?
If they are going to shrink the state, which parts specifically? If they are going to spend more on defence, how will they pay soldiers over the long term? Will this come at the expense of nurses and teachers? How will they make these difficult choices? What do they accept as the consequences of doing so?
If they want to preside over a smaller state, will they commensurately reduce their own powers of patronage? What will they do about the government payroll if the state is much reduced in activity?
They all also talk of resoring trust and probity. They may find that harder than just getting rid of Johnson. Yes, he was the obvious and egregious example of a man who should never have been elected PM. But they remain the same party that put him there as they were this time last week. The reckoning had to start at the top but it cannot end there.
Labour will be tempted to put the pressure on only over the issues of trust. But they would be wrong to do so. Wrong because for the sake of all of those who believe in the ability of politics to change lives, we have to hope that the Tories do sort out their rotten internal culture and rebuild as a party offering a right wing, conservative prospectus to the county that comes without the constant whiff of scandal and sleaze.
Labour should want to beat Tory ideology - not just the Tories. The latter is just tribalism - the former is what will change lives. I want the Tories in a position to put forward a coherent right wing narrative to the country - then I want a Labour Party in a position to beat them hollow on it.
It is too tempting for Labour to want - or to paint - whatever comes next as Boris mark 2. But doing so does not sharpen our own arguments in favour of the strong, good state we should be fighting for. For Labour to be self confident in our own arguments we have to have them properly tested by a worthy opponent. That is what we should be seeking as the best outcome of the next few weeks.
I run a political and communications consultancy called Political Human. Please get in touch if you are looking for political or media consultancy advice, strategic communication and campaign planning, ghostwriting, copywriting, editing, training or coaching.
You can read some lovely things that some of my clients have said here.
The first run of Triggered went exceptionally well. We sold out! This is my favourite photograph where you will see Jon Lansman - founder of Momentum and Luke Akehurst of Labour to Win both having enjoyed the show together!
You can also find a video of some MPs reacting to it here.
I am currently talking to another small theatre about putting Triggered on again in the autumn so watch this space.
My debut piece No Cure For Love can be seen here. There’s some interesting news on this coming so also watch this space…!
What I’ve been up to
It’s been a Shakespearean sort of a time hasn’t it!
I saw a local outdoor production of Twelth Night which was enjoyable but to groundbreaking.
On the other hand the RSC’s Richard III - an examination of a man who seeks power for its own sake and acts without principle to achieve it was incredibly timely.
On a very different note I was on the lovely ±Tim Worthington’s It’s Good But it Sucks podcast talking about Deadpool.
A final appeal. This newsletter takes quite a while to think about and write. I know things are really tough all over at the moment, but if you can spare some cash to say you’ve appreciated it, I can’t tell you how much that would mean to me right now.
Questions, comments and arguments are very welcome. Insults will get you summarily blocked on every platform that no longer hosts Donald Trump. I’m at emmaburnell@gmail.com or on Twitter (far too often) at @EmmaBurnell_.