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There is blood in the water and the sharks are circling. When the end comes it will be swift and brutal. It’s time to think about a future without Boris Johnson. Johnson is (and always has

been) a blowhard without integrity and without depth. He will shortly also be without a job. Power without authority is ephemeral. Once authority is gone, power melts away. There is rarely a

reprieve. Ludicrous attempts to buy voter loyalty with madcap schemes, such as flying asylum seekers to Rwanda (one of Africa’s poorest and most densely populated countries) or threatening

to withdraw constituency funding from disloyal MPs, are a sign of desperation. Ask yourself: what does Operation Red Meat tell you about how our Government sees us, the electorate? This is

cynical populism. There is something almost pitiful about his simulated, schoolboy remorse. But the electorate is in no mood to be merciful after two years of misery. And neither it seems

are growing numbers in his own party. Operation Big Dog is turning into operation hangdog. It may also be time to think about a future under a different government. No party in modern times

has ever formed a government for more than four elections in a row. They run out of steam and ideas. Voters like to ring the changes. It’s the nature of the electoral cycle. The next

election is some way away, but the question is not without relevance, especially for the Tories who, once again, are at each others’ throats. The crisis that will do for Johnson also

threatens to engulf the new, populist party he fashioned. Johnson’s successor will need to be a healer as well as a leader. They could be leading the Tories into opposition and a much-needed

period of reflection. A re-energised, centrist Labour party led with quiet authority by Keir Starmer is beginning to feel like a government in waiting. The mix ‘n match coalition that swept

Johnson to power in 2019 — traditional Labour seats and ancient Tory shires, Tunbridge Wells and Bolsover — was united by a desire for Brexit and a loathing of Jeremy Corbyn in equal

measure. But it isn’t obvious what else holds it together. We have a pretty good idea why lifelong Labour supporters defected in 2019. But it is far from certain that, absent Brexit and

Corbyn, they will do so again. Boosterism and culture wars will only get you so far. Brexit is not, as Johnson seems to think, the gift that will keep on giving. The anti-immigrant,

woke-baiting drumbeat which has become this Government’s anthem will pall. It is not, by and large, who we are. To survive as a leader you need to deliver. And to do that you need to govern

for everyone and you need to be competent. Christian Wakeford’s defection to Labour in Bury South could be the canary in the coal mine. His constituency like many others is an intricate

weave of complex and conflicting priorities which do not lend themselves to simplistic left-right solutions. If the polls are right, as many as 43 of the 45 “Red Wall” seats could be in play

were an election held tomorrow. We will know more after the May local elections. But make no mistake: this is more than just a changing of the guard. The Johnson project has been derailed.

We are at a crossroads. The question is not who will succeed Johnson. Booting him out will help restore a measure of calm and competence. But it will not be enough. The question is what kind

of country have we become and what kind of country we want to be. Politics is not a pretty business. It’s about horse-trading and finessing the truth. But under Johnson it has been infected

by a kind of anarchy: belligerent nationalism, rule breaking, disregard for international law, serial dishonesty, divisiveness. When some of our most senior mandarins see nothing wrong in

partying while people are dying in enforced isolation, you know the sickness is metastasising. Four years after Brexit, Britain remains deeply divided. Brexit itself is not going well. The

Union is under threat. Britain’s stock abroad is at an all-time low. Income inequality keeps rising. The economy is bouncing back, but only from rock bottom. The pandemic has skewed

everything, of course. Johnson has been dealt a bad hand. But we have yet to see a coherent programme for government. There is no plan, no obvious grasp of what the country needs. Just a

gaping hole where ideas should be, as Tony Blair recently remarked. Inner conflict is corrosive, which is why Number 10 is having a nervous breakdown. Ministers make up policy on the hoof

with an eye to their future. Discipline — perhaps _rigour_ is a better word — is almost entirely absent. There is not just a moral vacuum at the heart of government but also an intellectual

one. One of the most serious by-products of Johnson’s cavalier style of government is the persistent attempts to subvert the impartiality of the civil service and the independence of the

judiciary. Politicians come and go. Civil servants are the permanent backbone of a functioning state. If the civil service code (integrity, honesty, impartiality, and objectivity) is seen to

be compromised, the entire edifice shakes. The same goes for the judiciary. The bench (along with a free press) stands as a shield between the citizen and the state. Once its impartiality

is impugned or suborned we are no better than one of those “Stans” we rail against. The rule of law matters. So do rules, fairness and fair play. An administration that seeks to ride

roughshod over these because it wants to get things done without being properly accountable is asking for trouble. The pandemic has cut a swathe through every community and virtually every

family in Britain. But, perversely, it has been an opportunity (however unwelcome) for this Government to show that it can be trusted. It has failed miserably. Individual acts of kindness

and heroism have seen us through. But these are tarnished by the egoism and entitlement of a ruling elite that cannot tell the difference between a booze-up and a work event. Mind you, the

loss of faith in our political classes is not just a Tory story. The past few years have seen both main political parties at their worst. First Labour under Corbyn and then the Tories under

Johnson, both breaking out in a rash of political extremism. It’s easy to blame Brexit. But there’s more to it than that. The Corbyn project sought to address issues that urgently need

tackling: poverty, inequality, social justice. A decade of austerity that hit those who could least afford it in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis demanded progressive economic policies.

But Corbyn’s commissars chose to present the programme wrapped in language and culture that was toxic and awash with intolerance. The battle cry “For the Many not the Few” (the operative

word being not) was divisive, old-fashioned, class-warfare rhetoric. The centre-Left ran for the hills. The Tories, riding the discontent that ushered in Brexit, rooted their approach in

virulent nationalism and cheering on a divisive culture war. A government’s job is to unite, not sow division. Johnson may or may not be what the ardent free marketeers in his party voted

for. I’m not sure even he knows. But he has turned out to be the kind of demagogue happy to trample over values that traditional Tories hold dear to get his way. Edmund Burke, high priest of

Conservative thinking, would in all likelihood have castigated him for the thoughtless populism he and his acolytes peddle. Burke prized thoughtfulness above all else. If all this sounds

like a plea for moderation, that’s because it is. But it is not an argument against radicalism or change. Corbyn was unelectable but he was not irrelevant. Some of the policies he espoused —

help for the poor, levelling the playing field, cutting privatised monopolies down to size or nationalising them, building more houses — resonated. Johnson, too, spoke to people’s desire

for “something different”. He fashioned a narrative that suggested he was all things to most voters. For a while he got away with the illusion. The country faces serious headwinds: a

cost-of-living crisis, big constitutional problems exacerbated by rising nationalism in Scotland, the after-effects of an ill thought-out Brexit, the Irish question, social divisions and

inequality. What it does not need is more of the same: more drama, more crisis, more bar room brawls with Brussels, more squaring up to the French, more shooting from the hip, more preening

and posturing. What it needs — urgently — is clear-eyed competence, stability and as much integrity as is possible in modern politics. And that is not Boris Johnson. A MESSAGE FROM

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