A few days ago, when everything looked black, a small group of us were consoling ourselves over a couple of good bottles. ‘In politics,’ said I, ‘things are never as bad as you fear, or as good as you hope.’ ‘I entirely agree,’ replied one friend. ‘At the moment, things are not as bad as I fear. They are worse.’
That was before Bojo lost his mojo. Has his curse now finally been lifted from the Conservative party? It would be foolish to offer a swift and complacent ‘yes’. Among the political figures Boris resembles, we must include not only Alcibiades, Silvio Berlusconi and Donald Trump. There is also Rasputin. Can we be certain that Mr Johnson has been given the full fatal dosage: icy Neva, silver bullet, poisoned cake, stake through the heart? Nothing less is guaranteed to be sufficient. Many now assume that Borasputin is politically finished. We can be certain he is not one of them.
On the subject of quasi–miraculous escapes from doom, we should not forget an institutional example: the Tory party itself.
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