This afternoon, a text message went out to certain Tory MPs telling them that the Prime Minister was going to be in the tearoom from 4 p.m. with the plea ‘please come to support’. This tells us so many things about the mood in the Conservative party at the moment.
The first is that Johnson feels under sufficiently imminent threat to bother going over to the Commons tearoom this afternoon. And he’s right to do so: everyone I have spoken to today, including those who have been Boris loyalists all the way and have been working extremely hard to try to help him recover, say the mood of the party – and their own – has changed significantly in the past 24 hours.
‘Everyone is depressed, exhausted and the worst is still to come because even though we have to get rid of him’
‘This is the worst time I’ve ever had as an MP,’ says one senior backbencher.
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