The Tribune

“ALL political careers end in failure”. Those were the memorable words of Enoch Powell, who was a leading right-wing Tory, and some say a contrarian and a maverick politician, of the 1960s and beyond. It is a fair bet that some of the older generation in Britain will have recalled this famous dictum when watching Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s resignation statement outside No 10 Downing Street last Thursday as he stood down from what he called “the best job in the world”.

The BBC described it as an extraordinary day of extreme drama and political history. He was swept out of office on a wave of hysteria as government ministers resigned in their droves. He lasted as Prime Minister just under three years which was a slightly shorter spell than his predecessor, Theresa May, but on a par with Labour’s Gordon Brown who succeeded Tony Blair in 2007.

Many found it hard to believe a sitting leader who had won a General Election barely two-and-a-half years earlier with a landslide victory - the biggest win for the Tories since the heyday of Margaret Thatcher in 1987 - had been forced out of office ignominiously by his own parliamentary colleagues.

With his charisma and magnetism, he was able to connect with the British public and was a proven election winner; including, of course, completing two terms as Mayor of London. But, ultimately, he was brought down by his own flaws.

It seems Johnson was unable to convert his undoubted success in political campaigning into effective governance at the national level. His cavalier style and perceived indiscipline - together with a lack of integrity and trust as well as serial mismanagement - resulted in mounting disillusion within his own party. His time in office became marked by inconsistency and unrelieved chaos. Moreover, it was said that he was elected as a conservative and governed as a liberal. Thus, others considered his early departure from Downing Street was, towards the end, almost inevitable.

Many people now acknowledge he was a flawed figure from the start and his fate was determined by a series of unforced errors on his part and scandal after scandal. Most recently - after what was seen as self-indulgent entitlement and hypocritical disdain over “Partygate” followed by a confidence vote which he won but which was less satisfactory than he claimed - the final straw came with his lack of judgment in the appointment of a deputy chief whip who had been involved in allegations of drink-fuelled sexual harassment. Over the last few months he increasingly lost control. His influence ebbed away, his authority to govern evaporated and he was no longer able to command the confidence of the Tory party in sufficient numbers. So his position as Prime Minister became untenable.

Many contend Johnson was fatally weakened by being under relentless attack by the “europhile” BBC (called in parts of the UK popular press the Boris Bashing Corporation) and much of the other media and liberal commentators who opposed him because he masterminded the nation’s departure from the European Union – and this despite the fact he was fulfilling the outcome of the 2016 Brexit referendum. The BBC, in particular, has also been accused of ignoring proper objective journalism and impartiality by whipping up criticism of him week after week over Partygate and a host of other issues in an effort to make him stand down. It is said those concerned were intent on forcing out of office an elected politician – and, now that they have helped bring him down, they cannot contain their glee.

Even now, there is an attempt to humiliate him further by getting him out of office immediately rather than allowing him to continue as a caretaker PM until a successor is chosen, as was the case when his predecessors David Cameron and Theresa May stayed on temporarily after resigning.

Boris Johnson’s legacy is likely to be mixed. The mood turned against him as the economy soured, inflation soared and sleaze concerns grew while the Tories plummeted in the polls and lost support in by-elections so that he no longer seemed to be the election winner that he had been. But his achievements and successes should surely not be underestimated; for example, not only did he win decisively the 2019 General Election, oversee Brexit and secure a comprehensive trade deal with the EU but he was also judged to have handled the COVID pandemic well and presided over what was claimed to be Europe’s fastest vaccination rollout. In addition, he has been hailed by many for successfully leading the West’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Interestingly, unlike his predecessors who had to quit because of electoral defeat, policy failures or ill-health, he was the only Prime Minister in modern times to be overthrown because of his style of governance and perceived lack of judgment together with a lack of trust engendered by his actions. What is more, the herd – the term he used in his resignation statement – turned against him once the polls started to show the Tories were faltering and poor by-election results for them started piling up. The Conservative Party chose him in 2019 – flaws and all – when his colleagues thought he would win elections for them. But he was dumped when it became clear he was making the Tories lose.

Let the games begin

Following Boris Johnson’s resignation last week, the race to replace him as the leader of the Conservative Party and hence as Prime Minister is already well under way. So far, 11 contenders have put their names forward. The selection process involves Tory MPs whittling the list down to two finalists to be voted on by Party members across the country.

Although at the time of writing the exact timetable is still to be determined, from the information available now it is likely that through a series of votes Tory MPs will bring the list down to four by the end of this week, with a final two to be decided by 21 July when Parliament breaks for its summer recess. It is expected that the winner will be announced at the beginning of September, ready for the return of Parliament on September 5.

Of those who have thrown their hats in the ring, former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, has already produced a slick campaign video and appears to be the early front runner. But, as the other contenders make their case and seek support from their fellow MPs, the bookmakers will doubtless be forced to change the odds as the situation rapidly develops.

As everybody knows, politics can be a dirty business. So there will surely be no holds barred in a hard-fought contest for the top job as each candidate polishes his and her Tory credentials and is advocating low taxes and a high-growth economy.

But loyalty is still a valued quality. Already, doubts have been raised about Rishi Sunak’s campaign because it was his letter of resignation as a heavyweight in Boris Johnson’s cabinet which set off the chain reaction of other ministerial resignations that led to his erstwhile boss’s downfall. Moreover, having first registered his leadership election website last December and having a ready-made campaign video, the signs are that he has been plotting for months to become PM.

So will this be seen as his “Et tu, Brute” moment of betrayal – the words attributed by Shakespeare to the Roman dictator Julius Caesar when he saw, as he lay dying, that his friend and protégé Brutus was among the conspirators who had turned on him and were now ending his life? These are certainly interesting times in British politics.

Murder of a true man of honour

When BBC newsreaders allow themselves to show emotion, one should steel oneself for a shock. So it proved to be last week over the announcement of the assassination of Shinzo Abe, the highly regarded former Prime Minister of Japan. He was shot twice from behind by a single gunman while giving a speech at a political rally campaigning in connection with Japan’s Upper House elections. Apparently there had been no sense of threat or danger but inevitably there are now accusations of a security lapse by his protection officers.

The devastating news of this brutal and horrific act was particularly distressing because, reportedly, politically-motivated gun violence is virtually unheard of in Japan where controls are so tight that ownership of, and access to, guns is strictly limited. Such a terrible act of violence was therefore completely unexpected. The Japanese people are stunned and saddened and in a state of utter shock. There has also been an outpouring of grief overseas and expression of condolences from a wide range of global leaders, including the British Prime Minister who called Mr Abe a leader of great vision and spoke of a “dark and sad time”.

It is said that few other Japanese politicians matched the stature of the 67-year-old Shinzo Abe and could have inspired such an outpouring of grief internationally. He was a charismatic, larger-than-life figure with a compelling personality who was the longest-serving and most significant post-war Japanese Prime Minister, having been in office twice over a nine-year period. He had also served as foreign minister.

Shinzo Abe was a massively influential and transformative figure who wanted Japan to play a greater role in the world. In reaching out to international leaders and contacts and wanting to redefine Japan’s military role, he put his country on the global stage with his policy of engagement. He was held in high esteem around the world and the reaction of other countries to his assassination has been a testament to his standing internationally. Even out of office, he remained the most famous political figure in the country while heading the largest faction in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party -- and his voice continued to carry weight, though it has been said that he was also a divisive figure in some respects and that, more recently, his popularity domestically had waned.

This murder is a terrible reminder of the frequency of political assassination around the world. The list of just a few of the major political leaders suffering this fate during the 20th century includes Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose shooting in Sarajevo in 1914 sparked the First World War; the 1948 murder of Mahatma Gandhi, leader of the Indian nationalist movement against British rule; the assassination of US President John F Kennedy in 1963; the 1984 shooting of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her own Sikh bodyguards; and the killing of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.

Although political leadership can be a hazardous occupation, in open democratic societies public figures need to be able to connect with people and move freely among them. In such circumstances, their personal safety is at risk and it can be hard to provide adequate protective security in face of potential assailants who anyway might be mentally disturbed. So it is almost surprising that the incidence of aggression towards politicians is not in fact greater than it has been for so long. However, the horror of the shooting of Shinzo Abe is all the more shocking given that such violence in Japan is most unusual – and it is now being said this terrible act will have profound long-term negative effects on the country as a whole.