Plummeting from Tory Great Winner to Gigantic Liability in barely two months, battered Boris Johnson is now the Conservative leader that Labour wants to face at the next General Election.
The falling Prime Minister’s scalp is irresistibly delicious for the opposition yet key players in Keir Starmer’s team recognise they should be careful what they wish for without an immediate recalibration of the party’s strategy.
The Conservatives are a ruthless political machine which, unless Johnson recovers swiftly, will ditch the loser with the mercilessness shown Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May.
Labour’s smarter minds are turning to how to stop the Tories playing the old trick of presenting themselves as a rejuvenated party with an up-to-the-minute leader when they would be the same scarecrow with a changed head.
Johnson co-conspirator David Frost’s vengeful resignation as Brexit Secretary carried the whiff of an assassin’s moral blow after sleaze, party and wallpaper scandals culminated in the Tories’ loss of the North Shropshire citadel in the shock by-election result this week.
Part of the Labour strategy will be to paint the toxic Tories as Britain’s problem, an exhausted force with no ideas for the country’s future.
Another is to identify early who is most likely to replace Johnson and get the retaliation in first.
Talking to Tory MPs before Parliament went on its Christmas break, I reckon Liz Truss has edged into pole position ahead of Rishi Sunak with Jeremy Hunt, Priti Patel and Sajid Javid trailing behind.
The Instagram-obsessed Foreign Secretary’s Thatcher Mark II act is securing admirers on Tory benches and she has long topped popularity polls among Conservative members.
Sunak’s on the slide as a Chancellor damned for hiking taxes to a 70-year high and resisting a Covid Christmas cushion for pubs and restaurants.
I’m anticipating fierce Labour assaults on a lightweight Truss who prefers posing to policies.
Johnson, a dead man walking, might be axed if May’s local elections are bad. He could conceivably limp to the general election.
That’s Labour’s best bet. And that’s why the Tories will dump an unloved lothario they never respected.
