I would direct you to Liddle passim for why we are now in this state of chaos. Even if Theresa May hadn’t run the worst election campaign in living memory (again, passim) she still wouldn’t have increased her majority by much at all. I knew that as a fact, an absolute certainty, on the day the election was called, and explained why, no matter that the polls were showing a landslide. The decision to call an election was arrogant and complacent — and so was the subsequent campaign. None of us may want the additional chaos of a leadership election, but nonetheless, there should be one. She is, as I said two weeks ago, undone. Come apart. And dead meat.
I see the odds have shortened on Boris Johnson becoming leader and thus PM. I like Boris. He was even a friend. He has admirable qualities. But put him up against Corbyn and the Tories will lose by a mile. The toff stuff really does not play with the electorate, y’know? The electorate is not in the mood for Boris. The electorate may well be not in the mood for the Tories per se. But it certainly won’t be in the mood for Boris. Nor indeed anybody else from the Tory frontbench. Not the ones who were hidden, such as Fox, nor the ones who got out a bit, like Rudd. I think their only chance is Ruth Davidson. Untainted by catastrophe and with a self-evidently winning touch with the public, Remainer she most certainly is. But matched against the flaws of the rest of them this seems like an irrelevant point of detail.
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