What now for Boris Johnson? He’s lost two by-elections and a cabinet minister before breakfast, and isn’t even in the country. His response from the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Rwanda was that he would keep going, saying:
I’ve got to listen to what people are saying, in particular to the difficulties people are facing over the cost of living, which is I think for most people the number one issue.
I understand that the No. 10 plan to move on from these results had been to push up talk of an early general election in the autumn of this year. The Prime Minister had certainly been giving those signals to MPs who he has spoken to this week, suggesting it was time to ‘get ready’. The advantage of getting everyone excited about an election is that it focuses the minds of the Tory party on the choice the country would face between them and Labour.
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