Do Boris Johnson's Tory MP detractors dare answers these questions? - Bernard Ingham

No one can say that I have not acknowledged Boris Johnson’s many faults over the past two years.

Nor do I expect much of Tory politicians who proved they are inveterate plotters when they ditched Margaret Thatcher after winning three elections on the trot.

Incidentally, some of them tried for years to get me sacked as her press secretary.

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I consoled myself with the thought that they would not want to see the back of me if I were doing a bad job.

Boris Johnson. Pic: Getty.Boris Johnson. Pic: Getty.
Boris Johnson. Pic: Getty.

Let’s face it, all politicians are born with a conspiratorial gene.

But their hounding of Boris Johnson smacks of hypocrisy.

I have therefore been moved to pose a dozen questions for them so that we can all understand their motives better – if they have the guts to answer them.

1 – Why do you want to oust Mr Johnson?

Is it just dislike, his untidiness, his disorganisation, his reacting to rather than controlling events, loss of trust after ‘partygate’, Brexit or his free-spending habits, or a combination of these? We should know.

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2 – Do you credit him with any success – e.g. winning an election with the best Tory majority since 1987, the UK’s world-beating vaccination programme and his leadership of the West over Vladimir Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine? Or do you think his failings outweigh his achievements?

3 – Why all the fuss over two mid-term by-election defeats when only 39 per cent (Wakefield) and 52 per cent (Tiverton and Honiton) turned out to vote and the previous incumbents had to resign over sexual misdemeanours?

4 – Granted the Government faces huge problems, why do you think all is lost at the next election when the Labour Party, with its poor economic record, still does not know what it stands for and its leader is under perpetual fire?

Or do you think a Lib-Lab pact, backed by the Nationalists, will inevitably operate in a general election?

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5 – Are you prepared to risk a Labour-led coalition when it would almost certainly mean re-entering the European Union, plus its single currency?

After all, Lord (Michael) Heseltine thinks that only Mr Johnson stands between us and a return to Brussels subjugation. This is your chance to come clean.

6 – How can you justify overturning the national referendum on Brexit when the EU is manifestly a failing institution. Its Franco-German leadership will cut a poor figure at this week’s Nato summit, to the distress of Eastern Europe, over support for the independence of Ukraine.

7 – How can you resist a new Scottish independence referendum if you are prepared to overturn the Brexit result?

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8 – Do you accept that Mr Johnson was not responsible for the Covid pandemic or Putin’s brutal war on the Ukrainians? If so, surely as a Conservative you recognise the priority now is to restore the nation’s finances and repair our military strength to defend freedom. Do you fear all this is beyond Mr Johnson?

9 – Did you oppose the heavy spending during the pandemic on protecting jobs through the furlough scheme and other measures?

If not, how can you now object to tax increases when there is a yawning budget deficit and servicing the rising national debt costs over £80bn a year? Are Johnson’s free-spending ways your real worry?

10 – If not Mr Johnson to see the job through, who? He is at least a proven election winner, including two terms as mayor of a metropolitan Labour heartland.

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Do you think he has lost it and someone – who, I repeat – would do better?

11 – Are you aware that history shows that the British public does not like split parties?

Yet your thirsting after Mr Johnson’s blood has split the Tory Party almost down the middle.

Could it not be that your determination to have his scalp is doing more damage to your chances of re-election than Mr Johnson ever could?

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12 – What do you think of the argument that the Tories’ prime responsibility with a ravaged economy, failing social services, uncontrolled immigration and Putin posing a threat to world peace is to come together, at least for now, to concentrate on those priorities instead of changing horses in midstream and taking leaps in the dark, to exhaust the cliches?

You will gather from all this that I am aware of Mr Johnson’s weaknesses as well as his strengths.

He is not my ideal Prime Minister and I doubt, given his nature, he ever will be.

But I do think it is incumbent on those wanting rid of him to tell us clearly why, if they dare.

I suggest the constituencies of dissident Tory MPs demand they answer my questionnaire.