It is worth thinking back to late January when Boris Johnson’s premiership seemed in the greatest danger. As I say in the Times today, back then those Tories trying to remove Johnson were split into two camps. One group thought that they should go hell for leather to get the letters to force a no-confidence ballot. They worried that if they waited, Johnson might escape a police fine. He could then use that as a shield against the criticisms that the Gray report would contain.
The other faction, which contained several former cabinet ministers, argued that the danger in going early was that Johnson could survive the no-confidence ballot. Better, they argued, to wait for the police to fine him and then move at a point when they could be sure he would lose.
One member of the government payroll observes that there is a breaking point for Tory MPs, but he is ‘not sure what it is’
Yet, both groups turned out to be wrong.
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