I keep getting told by contacts on the Centre Right, that when Brexit is 'over', Boris Johnson will be able to reveal himself to be the nice liberal, One Nation Tory he's always secretly been. This feels Panglossian in the extreme. /1
A lot of stuff he does - eg the damaging threat to the rule of law in the Tory Manifesto, the dogwhistle xenophobia reported in The Times today - that seems unlikely to be a net vote winner. How do you explain this stuff otherwise than that it serves a much darker objective? /2
(Of course, even to frame the debate like that - 'it is understandable that he does evil things because it helps him retain power' - should stand as a warning to us all about where he has taken our politics.) /3
What I'd say to those One Nation Tories is two things. First, I know you don't want Corbyn - and I don't want him either. But he won't be able to do anything without the support of the Lib Dems - who are on the same spectrum as Cameroonian Tories. And The SNP. /4
And the second is this. What if your guess as to why Johnson does evil things is wrong? What if he does them just because, like Trump, he is a bad person? What might he do with five years of unbridled power? And how will you live with your choice to give him those years? /ENDS
Johnson is now so complacent about the General Election that he feels able to show us who he really is.
