London: Boris Johnson has been warned he faces the real prospect of a leadership challenge in the new year if he fails to urgently improve his performance as prime minister.
A senior backbencher told The Independent that disgruntled Tory MPs are currently holding their fire in the hope that the prime minister can shake off his recent run of disastrous miscalculations and political blunders.
But the MP warned that unless matters improve by Christmas, Conservatives – especially those with narrow majorities – will turn their focus to ensuring that the right leader is in place in time to give them the best chance of holding onto their seats in a general election expected in 2023.
Tory high command was on Wednesday doing its best to damp down speculation of as many as a dozen MPs writing letters of no confidence in Mr Johnson to the chair of the backbench 1922 Committee, with whips insisting they were not aware of any issues of that kind.
And Conservative MPs made a display of support for Mr Johnson at Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons, cheering his arrival at the despatch box, where he was flanked by chancellor Rishi Sunak in a public show of unity between the two men following reports of a rift between No 10 and the Treasury. Alongside Mr Sunak was foreign secretary Liz Truss, also suspected by some of being on manoeuvres for a possible future leadership contest.
But Mr Johnson was again forced onto the back foot, failing to deny Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s charge that he has breached his manifesto pledge that no one in England will have to sell their home to pay for care with a new policy that protects property only so long as a pensioner or their spouse is living in it.
In an uncomfortable moment for Tory MPs, Sir Keir repeated the question of a TV reporter after Mr Johnson’s shambolic speech to the CBI: “Is everything OK, prime minister?”
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The coffin of Sir David Amess is carried past politicians, including former Prime Ministers Sir John Major, David Cameron and Theresa May, Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle, Home Secretary Priti Patel and Prime Minister Boris Johnson during the requiem mass for the MP at Westminster Cathedral, central London
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London-based midwife Sarah Muggleton, 27, takes part in a ‘March with Midwives’ in central London to highlight the crisis in maternity services
Labour released a dossier showing that the £186,000 threshold below which homes will be at risk under the government’s plans is higher than the average property price in 107 constituencies in the north of England and 34 in the Midlands, compared with zero in London and the southeast.
Constituencies where average-priced homes would be hit include Red Wall seats seized by Mr Johnson from Labour in 2019. These include Workington (average value £160,000), Barrow and Furness (£155,000), Don Valley (£155,000), Redcar (£133,000) and Bishop Auckland (£125,000).
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Tory nerves were unsettled further by a new Savanta ComRes poll showing Mr Johnson’s lowest ever favourability ratings (minus-14) as prime minister as well as the lowest ratings (minus-16) for the government as a whole.
The survey of 2,184 UK voters gave Labour a lead over Tories for the second month in succession, with Sir Keir’s party on 38 per cent to 36 per cent for Conservatives.
The social care policy, slipped out last week just days before MPs were asked to vote on it, has fuelled discontent on the Tory backbenches already angered by unforced errors, including Mr Johnson’s abortive attempt to rewrite Commons standards rules to save Owen Paterson from punishment for sleaze and the botched announcement of a £96bn investment in rail for the north of England.
Some 19 MPs voted against the cap on care costs proposed by the prime minister after it emerged its design would force poorer pensioners to sacrifice up to 80 per cent of the value of their homes to care costs while wealthier people’s property will be protected.
But a senior Tory told The Independent that more worrying for Mr Johnson were the 45 to 50 MPs who abstained rather than backing the prime minister in Monday’s crunch vote.
The high levels of abstentions should be a “sign to No 10 that it needs to up its game”, said the MP, warning that if it doesn’t, “those people will start voting against”. The Independent
