Is Johnson doomed? The writing on the wall from the voters of North Shropshire reads: “Yes! 17,957 times, Yes!”
It marks the beginning of the end for Mr Showman.
He’s had his last twirl round the circus ring. The other clowns eye his starring role and the audience is shuffling out of the tent.
He graciously “accepts” the by-election result but he still can’t believe his time is up. He blames the voters but the first sign of political insanity is to believe your own self-deception: that the voters have got it wrong.
The end might not come in days, weeks or even months. But it will come, as it has done for so many previous premiers who believed the country could not do without them.
Ted Heath thought the nation would back him against the miners in 1974. Er, no. They re-elected Labour’s Harold Wilson. Jim Callaghan fancied he could survive the 1979 Winter of Discontent. He gave us Thatcher. Drowning in sleaze, John Major stayed on to the bitter end in 1997. Tony Blair was in turn ousted by his own Iraq war folly.
Johnson will go the way of his heroine, Thatcher – despatched by his own Tory officer class.
He has divided his party, just as he divided the country over Brexit.
The Greek tragedy of his hubris is that he can’t unite the country in the life-or-death struggle against Covid. We will all be the losers, until he is replaced by a leader in whom the country can trust.
