It is a very long time since David Maxwell Fyfe, a Tory home secretary in the early 1950s, said that ‘Loyalty Is the Tory party’s secret weapon’. It may not even have been true when he uttered the quote, and as the party messily defenestrates its latest leader, it is certainly not true today.
In fact, of Britain’s two major parties, it is Labour which has proved most reluctant to dump a failing leader, while the Tories have frequently been ready to unsheath the daggers and ruthlessly despatch their leaders to oblivion, often at the first sign of political stumbling or unpopularity. Uneasy lie the heads that wear the Tory crown, for the wearers must forever be casting backward glances to see if their troops are really following them, or sliding up to stab them in the back.
Boris Johnson is now following a long list of his predecessors into the political graveyard, after Tory MPs and ministers fell over themselves in calling for him to go.
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