Boris has proved to be a winner and a survivor

BORIS Johnson has made a career out of defying expectations. Now he has done it again.

- Leo McKinstry

On Monday night, after 148 of his MPs had voted against him in the leadership ballot, conventional wisdom at Westminster held that he was finished. It was said that the rebellion was too large, his authority too broken. There were claims that a slew of ministerial resignations would soon follow.

Former leader William Hague, now wearing the mantle of elder statesman, urged the Prime Minister to take an “honourable exit”. History was also invoked against Johnson. The result of the ballot, critics noted eagerly, was worse for him than that for Margaret Thatcher in 1990, when she was ousted within a couple of days, for Theresa May in 2018, who lingered on for six more agonising months, and in 1995 for John Major who was subsequently defeated in Labour’s landslide.

But, as so often before, Johnson refused to follow the script. Showing not the slightest indication that he was about to quit, he argued he had been given a “decisive” endorsement by his Parliamentary Party. Now he would get on with his job of delivering for Britain.