by Sunny Hundal

I could not be more happy that ‘Boris Johnson as Tory leader’ speculation is growing louder. I’m quite confident Boris is planning to throw his hat into the ring and positioning himself for 2015 if Cameron loses.

But I’d say the chances of Boris being the Prime Minister are remote.

This isn’t to say we should start celebrating, but right now Cameron remains a much stronger candidate than Boris.



I’ve already written why I think the Boris brand is weaker than his friends think. There’s another reason why I’m sceptical of Benedict Brogan’s piece from last night.

He says:

The reason for this City stampede is plain enough. Business has had enough of what it complains is the Government’s equivocating on the economy. Mr Cameron is now routinely derided by business leaders as another Ted Heath, a failure who started on the right track but lost his way. They want robust action on tax, workplace regulation, European bureaucracy and reducing the size of government, all themes that the London Mayor made a central part of his campaign for re-election. It doesn’t seem to matter that Mr Johnson enjoys the luxury of being able to pronounce on issues over which he has no say. He has found a knack for speaking Thatcherite truths about the economy in a modern idiom that does not appear to frighten the voters.

The tactic is obvious: Benedict Brogan is using Boris is a proxy to urge David Cameron to move further to his right.

But Boris isn’t the right-wing libertarian purist many commentators prefer to imagine him as. He largely carried through Ken’s legacy in London (lots of spending on big infrastructure projects) – he talked about austerity on one hand while simultaneously saying he was increasing police and transport spending. There are plenty more examples.

Neither is Boris that good at connecting to people. He just about scraped victory against a Ken Livingstone in 2012, even though the latter had already lost earlier and stumbled through a series of damaging gaffes. Boris didn’t win London against the odds – the London Mayoral elections are always about personality not party politics.

If Boris were PM he’d find that reducing taxes for the rich would look just as bad as it does now. The same goes for reducing the size of government – which Boris hasn’t showed much enthusiasm for in London.

Pay close to London politics (which most Westminster commentators rarely do) and the picture of Boris isn’t flattering – he talks the talk but generally his administration has just about managed to avoid giving the widespread impression of incompetence and disaster. Just ask Sonia Purnell.

Brogan cites the survey in ConservativeHome, but that’s a very weak guide to how the country thinks. And while voters think Boris is entertaining, they wouldn’t have him as their Prime Minister.

Don’t get me wrong – if Cameron loses in 2015 then Boris is certainly likely to succeed as leader. But I would take such a development as a cause for celebration not worry.