The two biggest threats to Boris’s leadership bid

Now the real shenanigans begin. Boris Johnson will – barring a disaster of Johnsonian scale – be on the ballot of Tory members to pick their next leader and our prime minister on or around 22 July. And, truthfully, given that he is by a margin the darling and chouchou of those members, it is challenging to see how he can be beaten. Except for one thing. His campaign has been wholly based on Boris Johnson as an idea, a concept – the idea being that only he through his force of personality and penchant for the arresting bon mot can sequentially deliver Brexit, boost the popularity of his party and then win a general election. His fans care not the most withered of figs for his chequered record at the Foreign Office, his joke that many found offensive about Muslim women wearing the veil, the notorious mismatch between his confidence and his grasp of detail.