Politics has resumed to normal and many people don't much like what they see
Ben Bradshaw MP says that those of us who have followed Boris Johnson's career closely have always known that when you strip away the bluff, bluster and boosterism, there's nothing there.
Ben Bradshaw
Ben Bradshaw, Labour MP for Exeter
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BEN BRADSHAW IS THE LABOUR MP FOR EXETER
It feels like in the last few weeks, the media and public have finally caught up with what those of us who have followed Boris Johnson's career closely have always known: when you strip away the bluff, bluster and boosterism, there's nothing there.
His landslide victory two years ago, which was more to do with the fact he wasn't Jeremy Corbyn and promised a public weary of Brexit wrangling to get Brexit done, has imbued the Prime Minister with a sort of Teflon invincibility which was never grounded in reality.
He was sacked as a journalist for making up stories. His spell as London Mayor was an expensive failure, characterised by grandiose vanity projects that became white elephants or were never finished. is
He flopped in his two spells as a backbench MP before, famously, drafting two versions of his Daily Telegraph column, one pro, the other anti-Brexit, before plumping for the pro-Brexit one and placing himself at the head of its campaign.
He and his new-found Brexiteer friends made Theresa May's job impossible by voting down each of her deals until he finally saw the chance to depose her and assume the crown himself. The rest, as they say, is history.
Proper scrutiny of Johnson's character and competence as PM was largely in abeyance during the Covid pandemic because of the public's natural desire for the Government to succeed and to give it the benefit of the doubt.
But we're now in the endemic phase of the virus, politics has resumed to normal and many people, including Conservative MPs, don't much like what they see.
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A return to the bad old days of Tory sleaze and corruption, broken promises over HS2, a social care funding system that will clobber those in modest homes while protecting the assets of the rich, a cost of living squeeze, threats to tear up his own Brexit agreement and damage our economy far more than Europe's, chronic labour shortages in many sectors, record NHS waits, record migrant crossings of the Channel and Covid rates going back up again.
All this has been accompanied by repeated and chaotic U-turns, infuriating his own MPs, who are marched up the hill and back down again, and by the Prime Minister's own shambolic and, frankly, embarrassing public appearances.
This may not be fatal for Johnson, but the multiple problems mounting up make it hard to see a clear way back from here and Conservative MPs are unsentimental about deposing a leader who has lost his or her electoral appeal.
Perhaps the Prime Minister, a man who is always complaining about not having enough money, will decide for himself to return to the lucrative column-writing and after-dinner-speech-making circuit.
Recent events should not by any means lead to complacency in my own Party. A new Tory leader could present a bigger obstacle at the next election than Mr Johnson. But, at least it feels that British politics is competitive again, which is not only good for Labour, but also for our democracy.
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