We’ve all heard about ‘tactical voting’. So you vote in an election for party you don’t want just to prevent a party you hate even more winning the seat. We’ve all done that. Personally, I’d vote for the Ayatollah tomorrow if it meant Corbyn would never achieve power. Though, and this is kind of important, that would be MY CHOICE. And as long as you are exercising your democratic right on those terms, that’s fine. There’s a big difference between voting for someone you hate and being forced to vote in any direction, whether you want to or not.

And this is the line that, allegedly, Team Boris crossed yesterday. Not content with a winning margin so big it could even fit round his waist (not a lot can, these days), Boris was, as always, thinking of ‘the big picture’. So as his colleagues and competitors were concerned with who would make that final cut to accompany the Blonde to the Members’ Vote, Boris was more concerned with which of his competitors would be present him with an easier task for the endgame. He decided that Michael Gove would be more difficult that Jeremy Hunt and thus did all in his not insignificant power to arrange it thus.

Gove is an intellectual heavyweight, a remarkably agile speaker, has a fierce knowledge and understanding of virtually everything and is very slippery in debate. Hunt… seems like a nice guy. Oh, and, according to sources, is a qualified football linesman. Which would win my vote but possibly is not a stand-alone essential for the highest office in the land.

So Boris, or rather, Team Boris, employed all manner of tactics to ensure that it was Hunt who would finally stand against him, rather than the far trickier Gove. They bullied, they applied ‘tactical voting’ to others, because Boris’s lead was so great he could afford to sacrifice a few of his own votes to ensure the challenger of his choice. His team then enforced Boris’s will by in some cases, actual threats. ‘Do you like your job? Do you want to keep it???’ type threats. And worse.

This is all legal, ish. It’s within some grey and woolly democratic lines. It’s ‘always been like that’. None of which makes it right. If the Tories wanted a squeaky clean leader for them and for the country, Boris wouldn’t have been allowed in the building when they started the process. His ‘fallibility’ is part of his charm. Arguably he’s spent more of his political life falling than he has standing.

I just don’t trust him. Whether that will make him a better leader (having no morals whatsoever never stopped Putin leading, nor Trump) I don’t know. But whatever, the Boris show rolls on.

Happy Friday

A xxxx