Urmstongran
In the article Mr. Nelson goes on to say “Those who back the Prime Minister point to his durability. Take the opinion polls: the Tories are still just seven percentage points behind Labour. David Cameron would have killed for such a close gap. John Major was 40 points behind at one stage. When everything is going wrong for him – a cost-of-living crisis and lockdown hypocrisy exposed – Johnson is still very much in the game, and exhibiting a kind of survival skill that is valuable in a political leader.”
His "durability" is not a merit point earned by him and his "survival" is not a skill, he's learned; these traits are a testament to our FPTP voting system where a PM can gain his position even though the majority of the electorate did not vote for his party, and a manipulative press owned largely by vested interests who made sure that no honest debate about Brexit, or Tory values, ever took place. And a smaller left-wing press that just wants to keep the red-flag flying.
Johnson does not acknowledge his mistakes and will therefore never learn by them.
He's hyper-sensitive to responses by those who attempt to hold him to account for his actions - believing they are the problem, and not him.
The seeds of his downfall are sown within those character flaws. He believes in his own puffery, and that he only has to pull something out of the hat to become invincible once again because he doesn't have the intellectual capacity for genuine self-reflection and will not therefore understand that there are only so many times you can overstep the mark.
He's a 'user' who doesn't realise that he's also being used, by a party that is the interface between extreme wealth and privilege, and the public. They will poke a stick up his back and wave him around to the electorate, just so long as he manages to capture and maintain the support they need. But his gaffes and mistakes are eroding public - and business - confidence and when the party feels he's run the course of his usefulness, they'll dump him. As they did with Thatcher.
Yes, the party is "exhausted by his antics" - MPs are getting more and more emails and messages also - from an 'exhausted' public. My own Conservative MP - a long-serving Tory - has made little bones about the fact that he wants him replaced by someone who upholds traditional Conservative values. But, like many others I suspect, is biding his time.
And what's the alternative? Starmer who, as you rightly say, has now distanced himself from Corbyn. He's also distanced himself from Remain, of which he was an ardent supporter. He's trying to court the 'red-wall' with 'making Brexit work', and the culturally-liberal left by tiptoeing around gender issues. Running with both the hare and the hounds. He's an intelligent man, but I believe he's made a huge intellectual mistake.
No wonder so many feel politically homeless.
