The Spectator

How Boris can silence his critics again

It’s hard to think of a prime minister who has reached No. 10 with lower expectations. Boris Johnson has been dismissed as a philandering clown, a joker calamitously miscast as prime minister in a moment of national crisis. Obloquy has been hurled at him every time he has taken a new job — from mayor of London to foreign secretary. When he became editor of this magazine, his critics said putting The Spectator into the hands of such an oaf was like asking an ape to look after a Ming vase.

At every stage, however, Boris’s critics have been confounded. His jobs change, but his style remains. His belief is that achievements speak for themselves, and voters understand that. He has been happy to be judged on his time as London mayor and on the Vote Leave campaign. The road to success, he believes, is to find brilliant people and give them the freedom to achieve great things. This is what he did at The Spectator, and in City Hall — and it is what he will now do as prime minister.

He is fundamentally a meritocrat. Theresa May had a weakness for ministers who were hopelessly ineffective but loyal. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown both had their tribes: the Blairites and Brownites were chosen more for affiliation than ability. David Cameron’s government was known as a ‘chumocracy’ because he elevated his old Oxford friends. Westminster politics is a tribal game, so new PMs tend to arrive with their tribe.

There will be no Boris Johnson chumocracy, because he’s not clannish: he doesn’t really have many chums. For all of his flamboyance, he is a very private politician who has never felt the need to build a tribe.

This is no time for a conventional prime minister, and a majority of Tory MPs backed Boris because they understand this.

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