Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

It has to be Boris

The government’s failings have hampered his campaign but he must prevail

The government’s failings have hampered his campaign but he must prevail

A few weeks ago, Mich­ael Gove addressed a crowd of Tory activists in the basement of a London hotel. He wanted to disabuse them of what he regarded as a dangerous notion. The London mayoral election, he said, was not about Boris Johnson vs Ken Livingstone; the stakes were far higher than one man for one city. They had nationwide implications. This is a critical moment in the lifetime of parliament, he said, which will set the trajectory for the next few years — for good or for ill. The London election was one of these very rare ‘watershed binary moments’ for British politics as a whole.

The Education Secretary spelled out the two alternatives. ‘One is that we will be re-elected, Ed Miliband’s flailing leadership will receive another blow and Conservatism will have been affirmed in the greatest city in the world and we will be on course for a majority. Or we’ll lose. The second half of this parliament will be about Labour being on the turn, coming back ready to govern and David Cameron will be seen as someone who is potentially a lame duck, who has his most powerful campaigner defeated. Someone who clearly has the momentum running away from him. It’s as simple as that, and unless we secure that victory for Boris, all the momentum that we’ve been able to generate in government will dissipate.’

Gove was speaking last month, when the Tories were ahead in the polls and George Osborne had yet to deliver what may be remembered as the most politically disastrous budget of modern times. A pile-up of government errors has followed and, now, confirmation that we are in a double-dip recession.

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