Boris Johnson’s premiership is in difficulty. With Cabinet resistance to the prime minister’s intended omicron measures, Lord Frost’s resignation, and ongoing ‘partygate’ revelations, he faces an urgent need to restore order to both the government and his party.
The dramatic Liberal Democrat by-election win last week merely reflected a growing frustration, even anger, within the nation that was even strong enough to overcome long-standing Brexit loyalties in a place such as North Shropshire.
No-one should put too much store by one by-election — it is only six months since Keir Starmer almost lost Batley and Spen, which would have resulted in a challenge to his leadership and probable demise. Things can change quickly in politics as the current Labour leader will have experienced, and Boris still has a number of things going for him. Starmer is a poor leader with a horde of hard Left wingers waiting for him to stumble. The Labour Party is not akin to New Labour in 1997, so the public still does not trust it. Boris can still get another vaccine bounce if he can get us through the latest Omicron variant without trashing the health service or economy.
To be fair to the Prime Minister, his has not been an easy premiership with Covid and Brexit to deal with – both probably one-in-a-hundred-year issues. But as he said himself, he crashed the car on a clear day in trying to save Owen Paterson, and the danger is that the continuing mistakes have cut through to the public, as seen by the hostile crowd reaction to Boris at the World Championship Darts, and will end with him writing off the car. Even if he delivers improvements in the short term, he doesn’t have enough supporters in Parliament or in the Party that are Johnson loyalists. His style of politics is transactional and distant from his Party.
The key over the next six weeks that may help to change the minds of backbenchers like Sir Roger Gale and Mark Harper is to begin to demonstrate that his Conservative Government is competent, in control of its people and actions, and scrupulously follows the same rules as the rest of the country. Another six weeks of the current chaos would be fatal. There is bewilderment within the Conservative Party at the level of Government incompetence and self-inflicted wounds, as if nobody is in control. George Osborne once told me “The public won’t love a Conservative Government, but it will support it if it delivers competent Government.”
Boris’ New Year mission must be to change the downward trajectory of his Government and deliver a traditional Conservative low tax, free enterprise, freedom loving agenda. To help him he needs to send an urgent call out to find George Osborne, the foremost political strategist that the Conservative Party has had for a generation. It is still a source of enormous regret that Theresa May foolishly disposed of his skills to the Party and the country. Osborne needs to return and not as a part-time adviser. The PM should bring him into the heart of Government and give him real power to get the Party and the Government functioning and delivering. He knows how to do it.
The hugely successful former Chancellor has all the experience required to run a government that delivers, while the PM is front of house. He loyally did so with David Cameron to win back the liberal Tories that had deserted the Party, getting the Tories back into Government and running the economy very successfully. Osborne emerged from his time in Government with huge credit although without much thanks. He had effectively been Party Chairman, Chief Whip, chief strategist, and Chancellor for six years. Given the power and opportunity, he has both the gravitas and experience to help the Prime Minister.
Osborne is out of mainstream national politics, earning a lot of money, enjoying his personal life and has the time to engage in a range of passions. It would be hard for him to return. But knowing George, he loves his Party and would relish the opportunity to serve his country. He has never lost that fizz and excitement for politics – I would wager he would answer Boris’ call. Boris I urge you, as someone you know and who wants you to succeed, pick up the phone to George Osborne!
