This looks like the beginning of the end for Boris Johnson’s premiership.
Tory MPs are heartily sick of defending the indefensible time and again only for the PM to backtrack after yet another blunder.
He’s U-turned 43 times in 23 months – from giving kids free school meals after telling them they couldn’t have them to declaring their A-level results fair before conceding that they weren’t. But forcing his MPs to vote for the madness of firing Commons sleazebuster Kathryn Stone really took the Rich Tea.
With an 80-strong majority there can be no General Election to rid them of this turbulent beast. That’s why MPs are plotting a leadership challenge instead.
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The One Nation Group of Tory MPs, known as “The Sensibles” and led by former First Secretary Damian Green, are a Cabinet-in-waiting of ministers sacked by the PM and itching to get back into power.
Their tactician is dark arts master Gavin Williamson, the former Chief Whip sacked as Education Secretary by Boris in summer’s reshuffle. “He’s now hell bent on bringing the PM down,” one MP told me.
And their champion is former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who still nurtures hopes of leading his party despite Boris defeating him in 2019.
Mix in the new intake of Red Wall Tories furious at not getting jobs in the reshuffle – whose seats are now under threat as Boris plunges in the polls – and the PM has cooked up a right Eton mess for himself.
The fireworks for this new Gunpowder Plot are now primed. And these guys are ready to light the fuse.
