Are Tory MPs too ‘frit’ to bin Boris?

Boris Johnson is in the midst of the bleakest period of his premiership, but he can at least nibble on a crumb of comfort from history. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the Tory party is not at all ruthless in dispatching their prime ministers when they have fallen out of favour with voters, or appear to have passed their sell by dates. If Boris is on his way out, he might still be able to look forward to one of the very long goodbyes experienced by his Conservative predecessors in No. 10, thanks to the marked reluctance of Tory MPs to wield the fatal knife.

Let’s start with Johnson’s hero, biographical subject, and the man he is said to have modelled his political career upon: Winston Churchill. After the electorate had brutally dismissed the wartime leader and handed Labour a massive landslide victory in the 1945 General Election, many thought that Churchill – 70 years old and in declining health – would retire to sunnier climes and spend the evening of his life writing books and painting pictures.