Today’s Prime Minister’s Questions was predictably ugly, with Boris Johnson in a visibly bad mood and unable to contain himself as he tried to defend his leadership against a full-throttle assault from Sir Keir Starmer.
Tory MPs fear the goodwill he has enjoyed over the vaccine programme is fading
Starmer for his part saw last night’s huge Tory rebellion as the signal to drop his previous caution. Today he branded Johnson the ‘worst possible Prime Minister at the worst possible time’, said Tory MPs were right not to trust their leader, and that he was ‘socially distanced from the truth’. He continued: ‘We can’t go on with a prime minister who is too weak to lead,’ adding, ‘So will the Prime Minister take time this Christmas to look in the mirror and ask himself whether he has the trust and authority to lead this country?’
Johnson was struggling, in part because it seemed clear that a large number of Tory MPs agreed with this analysis too. He ended up accusing the Labour leader of being ‘pompous’ and resorted to his comfort blanket of ‘we vaccinate, they vacillate’. This line of attack was never very good when Johnson was enjoying good political times. It looked rather desperate today, not least because Tory MPs fear the goodwill he has enjoyed over the vaccine programme is fading.
The only comfort Johnson will have is that none of those rebel backbenchers felt this session was the time to kick him when he was down. The questions from the Tory side focused on personal campaigns and constituency issues, which suited the Prime Minister very well. But not-unhelpful questions can’t heal the blow to his authority, and chances are that neither will the Christmas break.
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