Thread by @bmay

2022: a possibly overly optimistic scenario… 🧵

1. Johnson presides over more chaos, more scandal/ dodgy behaviour comes to light. There will be more PR disasters where barely sentient backbenchers defend the impossible under orders before he u- turns. They get more furious/

2. Polls get worse and worse, especially in Red Wall and other marginal areas as the pandemic drags on, and, more importantly, the utter calamity that is #Brexit starts to really bite. Tory members continue to wake from their clown obsessed coma /

3. No one finds the PM amusing anymore. No one believes a word he says. There is a trigger event that proves the last straw. A leadership contest begins, Johnson resigns. Sunak, Truss, Hunt, Patel, Gove and one ERG backbencher enter?

4. Truss needs to get through the MP vote to win, as the membership love her (yes, I know big LOLs). She probably makes it through by going all right wing and silly and gets some ERG votes as they think she is like Thatcher because she poses with tanks. /

5. Truss wins. There is a brief honeymoon of selfies in various states of being PM. But she isn’t a leader or a serious person. Meanwhile pandemic is still a mess and #Brexit is a progressive disease, so cannot be fixed. She becomes a laughing stock; like Edith Cresson in 90s 🇫🇷

6. Labour is now grown up and capable, and making some noises about more strategic and clever deals with Lib Dems and others. They build their machine back up, attract new talent, purge the dying embers of Corbyn cult, and are ready for power.

7. Liz struggles on to 2024, when she has no choice but to call an election.

The Tories are booted out for a generation, like in 1997. Labour majority.

Nearly all my political predictions are wrong, but I like to dream. And it’s technically possible, I think. 🧵 Ends.