Why it is time for Boris Johnson to do or die and show us his Tory leadership plan – Bernard Ingham

They are incredibly slow on the uptake. Surely they must by now realise that the more they throw at him the more it endears him to ordinary men and women of the world.

Power Up The North must not depend on Boris Johnson’s HS2 and Brexit mystery tour – Tom Richmond

Here, we say, must be the man who will really free us from the European Union’s clutches by Halloween.

Latterly his former editor, the arrogant Max Hastings, has called him all the names under the sun in – inevitably – 
the Guardian. His domestic tiffs are revealed to pander to public prurience. And now the Foreign and Commonwealth Office I assume, reveals he once likened the French to what pooper-scoopers pick up.

How I witnessed Boris Johnson’s star quality during his visit to Leeds – Stephen Naylor

It is, of course, the FCO’s job to make love, not war, abroad. I confess that I once advised Margaret Thatcher that this should also be her purpose in going to Euro-summits after she got very bloodthirsty about the Continentals.

The FCO takes its responsibilities so seriously that it once pleaded with me to remove “bloody” from a Denis Thatcher quote in a draft of my book Kill the Messenger.

Why Boris Johnson must follow Jeremy Hunt’s lead on Power Up The North – The Yorkshire Post says

When the lights kept going out in Goa at a Commonwealth conference, he bawled in frustration from the verandah of his bungalow: ”This bloody place is high on the buggeration factor.” Musn’t hurt the Indians, the FCO said.

To my eternal shame, I acceded to their request.

Why Labour must move to political centre if Tories lurch to right under Boris Johnson – Andrew Vine

Then they pleaded with me not to make a song and dance about being hit in the solar plexus, I think inadvertently, by a young soldier’s rifle butt as he tried to stem a surge in the welcoming crowds in Kano, Nigeria, that bowled me over – mostly in full view of the media..

And, of course, Foreign Secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, once wrote to Mrs Thatcher demanding my sacking apparently because I was giving out the Government’s line, not his.

I am not surprised we are told Boris was a useless Foreign Secretary, never mastering his brief. I can testify that he is a long-term Eurosceptic, not the sort of chap for the FCO.

But it now looks – partly because of his enemies – as if he will go to No 10. In that event, he will have to free us from Brussels by the autumn or be for ever damned.

This is the reality of his position as the favourite for the Tory leadership. It really is do or die for him.

Batten down the hatches for an even more turbulent few months in our politics as he works out his future. We should also be concerned about what will follow his extricating us from the EU’s foolish and dangerous attempt to build a federal Europe.

We have not heard from him – or from any of the original 13 leadership contenders – how, apart from spending money they don’t have, they would go about securing the four crucial essentials of central government: the protection of the realm, its currency and the weak and the upholding of law and order.

Apart from cutting taxes and immigration, Boris has been curiously silent about the prime purpose of government.

His normal ebullience and optimism are admirable just as some of his gaffes are endearing.

But how will he run a successful economy that secures our defence and provides the wherewithal for improving public services?

Does he realise how mentally disturbed the nation has become when doctors say charging freeloaders from overseas for NHS care is racist?

Does he understand how much 
the concept of public service has 
gone out of the window when doctors are working only three days a week, so comfortable are the salaries conceded by Gordon Brown, or retiring in 
lumps to avoid a tax penalty on their pension pots?

Is he prepared to tell chief constables that – if they won’t uphold the law – he will get some who will?

Similarly, will he spearhead a fightback in education – indeed everywhere – against censorship by the sensitive, especially as he is inclined to be very free with his views? What’s sauce for the goose...

Does he realise that his job is 
not just to recover our sovereignty 
but all the qualities that made us a great nation?

He must not only preserve us from the ravages of Jeremy Corbyn and his politburo but write a new glorious chapter in our history.

If he does, he really will rank with the Churchill he apes.