From The Spectator
Boris's worst day
It's been a torrid week for Boris Johnson, but today has easily been the worst so far. His own brother Jo quit as an MP and minister at lunchtime. As we discuss on our Coffee House Shots podcast, while it isn't a huge surprise that the Prime Minister's brother isn't hugely happy with the direction his party is heading in, his resignation was high drama. Not only did Jo Johnson choose to announce he was going now, rather than waiting for the forthcoming general election to stand down, he also did so just as things were appearing to calm a little after the rows.
And today was supposed to be the first of Boris's election campaign. For a launch day, it would have been pretty rubbish without his brother quitting: his party is in emotional turmoil still after losing 21 MPs, and his speech this afternoon at a police training academy in Wakefield was chaotic and rambling. Time was when a chaotic and rambling Boris Johnson speech was just what everyone wanted: he would sell out party conference halls and even entertain grouchy journalists. But this was a different sort of chaos.
It wasn't helped by the fact that the Prime Minister was late to speak, and so the bizarre line-up of police cadets behind him had been standing in the glaring sunlight for over an hour by the time he finished, with one of them apparently being taken ill right behind him. It also wasn't just that Johnson, presumably in an attempt to continue his amusing chaotic act of old, decided in the middle of his highly political speech to start trying to recite the script used by officers when they are interviewing someone under caution. Or indeed that he couldn't actually remember what job his brother was doing at the moment (he praised him for his work as science minister when he has until today been universities minister). It was also that Johnson didn't appear to know what he was there to talk about. His speech rambled from spending priorities to Brexit to Jeremy Corbyn, without any clear theme or confidence. It was almost as if all his claims that he doesn't want an election are actually true. This was not a good day one.
