The Prime Minister has sunk in the esteem of Tory MPs, ConHome readers and the press because he hides away too much in Downing Street.
He was the most formidable Chancellor of the Twentieth Century and a titan of the modern Conservative Party – voting for Sunak and endorsing his approach in last summer’s Tory leadership election.,
Three Conservative backbenchers, and then most damagingly the recently resigned Health Secretary, told the Prime Minister it was time to go.
Voters aren’t used to a world of rising prices and interest rates, and their hearts and minds are up for grabs.
But bearing the stamp of approval from the Iron Lady and her first Chancellor does not stop them from being a fundamentally bad idea.
My instinct last week was that he tried too hard to please the Tory press. Nothing’s that’s happened since has suggested otherwise.
Conservative governments can raise tax rates temporarily as part of a clear plan – which wasn’t the case with last week’s announcement.
The big picture is that Johnson is dashing for growth. We devoutly hope it works but the precedents aren’t promising.
Javid’s resignation statement contained jokes but also warnings. “I’m a low-tax Conservative,” he said, and the Treasury “is the only tax-cutting ministry”.
As the final volume of the authorised biography appears, its author remarks that by the end, there was almost no one who could say: “Come on Margaret, stop it.”
Clarke delivered an attack which recalled Howe’s on Thatcher.
At the final meeting of her Cabinet, a revived Iron Lady told members, during a coffee break, that “on no account must Heseltine be elected”