Prime Minister Boris Johnson fulfils his dream
“I CAN’T imagine Boris in charge of a whelk stall, let alone the economy and nuclear weapons!” So David Laws, then a Liberal Democrat MP, dispensed with the ludicrous notion that Boris Johnson might become prime minister one day. Seven years after he wrote that quip in his diary, the joke is on Mr Laws—and the rest of Britain. On July 23rd, the Conservative Party pronounced Boris Johnson to be the winner of its leadership contest; party members gave him twice as many votes as his opponent, the foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt. Mr Johnson is due to move into Downing Street on July 24th.
Mr Johnson has made it to the top through a combination of charm, political nous and ruthlessness. He spent years cultivating an air of rumpled silliness, which looks like authenticity to many Britons. An opinion poll in September 2012 (when Mr Johnson was mayor of London and still illuminated by the Olympic flame) showed that he was by far the country’s most respected politician. He was the biggest star of the campaign to leave the EU—which probably helps to explain why he signed up for that campaign rather than the opposite one. Having failed to become leader of the Conservative Party in 2016, he set out to undermine the woman who did.
