Following this morning’s shock by-election result, gloom and despair are gripping much of the Conservative party in the South of England. But one ex-Tory Cabinet minister was in brighter spirits today, with former Attorney General Dominic Grieve popping up on BBC News to explain why his onetime colleague turned Brexit nemesis Boris Johnson is to blame for the defeat in true blue Buckinghamshire.
Grieve, who lost the Tory whip on Johnson’s orders in September 2019 after voting with opposition MPs on a three line whip, has repaid the snub by frequent jibes at the Prime Minister, such as labelling him a ‘vacuum of integrity.’
This morning was no different with Johnson being viewed by the ‘sophisticated’ Chesham and Amersham electorate as a ‘charlatan’ touting a ‘fraudulent prospectus.’ Moreover while ‘some’ sections of the electorate warm to Johnson’s optimism, the ‘sophisticated’ voters here ‘perhaps take life a little bit more seriously’ and judged him accordingly:
I think that the result in Chesham and Amersham was predictable and indeed all the information I was picking up from friends who live there in the last three weeks and indeed in my old constituency suggested to me that this was going to be the outcome. And this has happened not just because of HS2 or because of greenbelt issues, though doubtless that has played a part, it’s because this is a pretty sophisticate electorate that knows what a fraudulent prospectus is and they have a very low opinion of the prime minister and they consider him to be a charlatan.This is, I think, quite a widespread view amongst a certain section of the electorate that has consistently voted Conservative all of their lives because this is a deeply conservative area with a small c and that’s the fundamental problem that the Conservative party has got. They have a prime minister who appears to have an appeal to some sections of the electorate because he’s optimistic, he’s sunny. he’s outgoing and towards another group who perhaps take life a little bit more seriously he comes across extremely badly and it’s got much, more worse.
Of course, Chesham and Amersham just happens to border the constituency of Beaconsfield, formerly the parliamentary base of one Dominic Grieve who lost his seat here by 15,712 votes eighteen months ago. Curiously enough, Grieve’s concession speech that night was lacking in effusive praise for the wisdom of the voters in perceiving Johnson’s ‘fraudulent prospectus.’
Perhaps they just weren’t as ‘sophisticated’ as their next door neighbours over in Chesham and Amersham?
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