Analysis: Having been in denial for weeks, the Tory leader finally understands how how much trouble he is in
Boris Johnson’s glum face at the Queen’s jubilee pageant on Sunday said it all. With his face at times in his hands, he did not appear to be fully concentrating on the parade.
“He actually took the call just as he was heading off to the pageant so he didn’t have the time to communicate it to even his closest advisers until after it was done. He sat there smiling at the performances for a couple of hours, wondering what to do and then he rang a few of us to go round last night and get on with it,” one of his closest associates said.
The Mail on Sunday reported that Johnson was previously so tetchy about being booed in an east London restaurant where his son, Theo, worked that he “flicked his finger” in a rude gesture at the public hecklers. Those who know Johnson well say he cannot bear the idea of being disliked, and has been reluctant to believe the polls and focus groups showing his standing with the public has plummeted.
Aiming to retain his sense of statesmanship, he instead wrote to colleagues setting out his case, orchestrated a letter of 23 big name donors backing him, and got Barclay to write a piece for ConservativeHome urging colleagues not to “waste” the remainder of the parliament with a row over the leadership.
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