A little over six weeks ago Boris Johnson lost his job as Britain’s prime minister. After the rapid fall of Liz Truss, he wants it back
Conservative grandees warn of the party being thrown into a “death spiral” if Mr Johnson wins the leadership contest that is now under way. Many of Mr Johnson’s former allies have declared their allegiance to Rishi Sunak, the frontrunner and a former
Yet a second Johnson premiership remains possible. His team claims that he already has the 100 nominations of Torys required by 2pm on Monday to enter the race to lead the Conservative Party. If they are not bluffing, and he makes it into a final pair of candidates who would then be put to a ballot of the party’s 170,000 members, he has a strong chance of winning. Mr Johnson emerged as the first choice in a survey of party members published by YouGov, a pollster, on October 18th.
Given all this, what explains his continued support amongst the Tory membership? The simplest explanation is that he is liked. He makes Conservatives feel good about being conservative, says Andrew Gimson, the author of a new biography of the former prime minister. He has spent years honing his after-dinner speech to them: a pie of inoffensive policy ideas mixed with classical allusions, self-deprecation, coarse jokes and slapstick.
Start with the notion that Mr Johnson is a popular man. There is abundant polling evidence to show that he is not. By the time he was forced from office Mr Johnson’s disapproval rating of net -44 was comparable to that of Theresa May at the end of her calamitous premiership. A poll by Ipsos in August found that Britons thought him the worst prime minister since the second world war.
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