THE former Conservative chancellor Philip Hamond has predicted Boris Johnson will be out of Downing Street before the next general election.
Lord Hammond said the scale of the rebellion the Prime Minister suffered in Monday’s confidence vote was “very difficult to survive”.
He said that before he left office, Mr Johnson’s instinct would be to make headline-grabbing policy choices in a bid to shore up his popularity.
He would offer “populist” choices when the country’s economy needed realism, he said.
Lord Hammond was speaking to Bloomberg on the day it was confirmed Mr Johnson wants to extend the Thatcherite right-to-buy to housing associations tenants south of the border.
Mr Johnson survived Monday’s vote, but lost the support of 41 per cent of his MSPs, a bigger rejection than Theresa May suffered in 2018.
She was out of office six months later.
The PM has vowed to carry on, but faces fresh hurdles with two likely byelection defeats on June 23 and a report into whether he misled parliament over Partygate in October.
Lord Hammond, who resigned as Chancellor when Mr Johnson became PM in 2019 and lost the Tory whip for rebelling over Brexit, said: “I can’t say whether he will be prime minister going into 2023, but I don’t think that he will lead the party into the next general election [expected in 2024].
“A rebellion on this scale is very difficult to survive and I think he will find that his authority in the party ebbs away over the next few months.”
He went on: “I don't know whether he realises, but I know that Boris Johnson’s instinct now will be to reach for popular policies, do the populist thing, and try to offer people what in the short term they think they want.
“Unfortunately we’re at a point in our economic cycle where what we need is a dose of realism. We have some challenges in this country to face.
“The sooner we get to grips with them, and face them honestly and openly, the quicker we’ll get out of them and the better chance we’ve got of resuming a strong growth parth and rebuilding living standards.”
Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove today ruled out running against Mr Johnson again, saying he had made a “mistake” in doing so in 2016.
He also said the Prime Minister was “doing a good job”.
Asked on Sky News if he had confidence in Mr Johnson, he said: “Enthusiastically, yes.”
After David Cameron resigned following the Brexit referendum in 2016, Mr Gove infamously turned on Mr Johnson and said his fellow Leave campaigner was unsuited to being PM.
“If you’ve been in politics for a little while, as I have been, then there are always mistakes that you can look back on. But I think the prime minister is doing a good job,” he said.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel