Boris Johnson is Labour’s greatest asset – why not sit back and enjoy the show?

We are now approaching peak Johnson, the period for which the Owen Paterson affair, Partygate and the cost of living crisis were mere preludes

There should be no disappointment in the opposition parties that Boris Johnson is still leader of the Conservative Party and prime minister. A central political reality bears repeating because it keeps getting forgotten: Boris Johnson is the greatest political asset that Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP possess.

It’s great that he “won” the confidence vote so unconvincingly and left them with the worst of both worlds, having to fake loyalty to a bloke they loathe. It’s magic that Tory MPs who declare him a disaster on Monday night are expected to praise his genius on Tuesday morning.

Why not embrace the fact that Boris Johnson is a far more effective vote winner for the opposition than Starmer, Davey and Sturgeon put together. He is electoral poison for the Tories. He humiliates himself and his colleagues just by waking up in the morning and putting on a crumpled suit. He can be relied upon to say and do the wrong thing.

At the meeting of his backbenchers before the no confidence vote, he defiantly declared he’d do the illegal parties in Downing Street all over again. After the vote, looking improbably happy and refreshed, he went on TV and showed no humility and declared it an “extremely good result”. He was grinning like he’d just won Eurovision, conquered Everest and scored the winning goal for England in the World Cup final, not scraped through with the help of the payroll vote and some stray nutters. He tries to gaslight us, but he’s not very good at it, so he looks like he’s on another planet.

He selflessly sacrifices the careers of Conservative councillors. He hands Labour huge opinion polls leads. He cheerfully sacrifices seats in by-elections with huge swings against the Conservatives. He is so scornful of Scotland and insulting to its government that he is pushing his party to extinction there. He is a walking, talking scandal machine. He dithers and delays, and when he does make a decision, he can’t stick to it. He hasn’t got any ideas, and fewer policies. The public think him a liar and a crook and won’t believe a word he says. He is a political gift from God like no other. Why – if you’re not a Tory – try to be rid of him? Why?

Right now, the opposition has Johnson exactly where they want him – limping aimlessly without the authority to do anything about the predicament he finds himself in, even if he knew what to do about the economic crisis, which he doesn’t, and even if his party was united, which it isn’t.

We are now approaching peak Johnson, the period for which the Owen Paterson affair, Partygate and the cost of living crisis were mere preludes – a full on stagflationary nightmare, the place where his jolly mayoral boosterish sloganeering is going to go to die its miserable death. He is the ideal cheerleader of a city such as London in boom times. He is ill-suited to taking the tough decisions required to get us out of our post-pandemic, post-Brexit mess. Leave him where he is, please.

Ah, but you may ask, what about the “national interest”? Putting country before party? Acting for hard-pressed families? That is the real failure of political understanding. You should really start to think like a Conservative. If you think like a Conservative there can be no difference between the national interest and the party interest because they are the same thing – always identical. In this world view, what is good for the Conservative Party must be good for Britain. In Johnson’s case, that extends to a belief that what is good for him is also good for the party and for the country.

So if you’re Labour, you should think that whatever makes it more likely to secure a Labour government is in the general, long-term interests of the country and its people. Because the alternative is a Conservative administration that doesn’t care about poverty, the NHS, political freedoms or anything else you hold dear. Therefore, anything that weakens the Tories is good for the country, and there is nothing that weakens them more than labouring under the hefty burden of Johnson’s chaotic premiership, which daily contaminates the Conservative brand. Let him be!

Every day Johnson is in place adds to the likelihood that the Tories will be smashed next time – and some figures, such as Jesse Norman and Tobias Ellwood, are now so desperate they are admitting as much. They’re not being listened to sufficiently because too many of their colleagues are so invested in Brexit and “Boris” as a brilliant PM and superb campaigner that they can’t cut their losses and “move on” to a new leader with a more pragmatic agenda and some idea of what the government is supposed to be for.

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The cabinet ought to tell the prime minister he should go, probably after he’s lost the Wakefield and Tiverton by-elections, and he’s helped demonstrate to the voters the power of tactical anti-Tory voting. Cabinet ministers show little sign of doing the right thing because they know Johnson will probably ignore them, sack the dissidents and promote some ambitious younger ministers in their place (which admittedly would be an improvement), just as Jeremy Corbyn did with the shadow cabinet in a similar situation.

Some, such as Nadine Dorries, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Oliver Dowden know they’re going into oblivion with him. Others don’t have the courage to act. Rishi Sunak has missed his chance, imploded, and is now in the same position as Dorries, entirely reliant on Johnson’s goodwill.

So if I were Starmer or Davey I would just leave the Tories to destroy themselves, because they are their own worst enemy right now, and their leader their biggest liability of all. I wouldn’t, as Starmer did last night, disrupt their brawling with some pompous speech about honesty, or tabling performative votes of no confidence in the government, which only helps to re-unite them.

Pontificating about standards and probity prompts the Tories to shout “beergate” at you and reminds them that you’re the enemy. The Tory civil war has broken out again. Just enjoy the show, like the rest of the country.