When Prince Clement Von Metternich, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Austro-Hungarian Empire for four decades, was informed of the death of Charles de Talleyrand, he asked his advisers: “And what did he mean by that?” Sibylline clergy, statesmen, and diplomats have succeeded, by virtue of opacity and Machiavellianism, to hold important positions in French politics during the time of Louis XVI, the French Revolution and post-Revolution, and the Napoleonic Wars. Boris Johnson is much flatter and lacks a lot of sophistication. Yesterday, after losing two important partial elections in the UK, he limited himself to saying “I carry on”. And no one doubted that this was what he meant.

Johnson continued, though party gate , after passing a condemnation motion, that 70% of Britons do not trust his economic policies, that he is being investigated for lying to Parliament and that, since John Major in 1991, no prime minister has lost two electoral passages on the same day. His Tory predecessor managed to win the entirety the following year, and the current leader is still confident that he will overcome his current problems and victories in 2024.

The Tiverton (Devon) chair has been held by the Conservatives since its inception one hundred and thirty years ago

their co-religionists Tories they are hardly convinced after yesterday’s party lost seats in Wakefield (Yorkshire) and Tiverton (Devon), the former Labor stronghold that Johnson conquered in 2019 thanks to Brexit and its populist social conservatism, and the last conservative stronghold for the one hundred and thirty years that have passed in the past. Liberal Democrats. Lawmakers across the country, seeing their neighbors’ beards peeled off, wondered if the prime minister had lost his magic and was about to cause catastrophic catastrophe when the country went to the polls. And if not, it would be better to catch up.

Oliver Dowden, co-chair of the Conservative Party, resigned as soon as the results were known “because things can’t go on like this and someone has to take responsibility”, a veiled call for Cabinet members to show up in Johnson’s office and tell him it was time to pack up. But the chances of being noticed are as slim as the chances of a flying saucer landing in a Downing Street park. leader story he had chosen his ministers for the mediocre, for without him they would have gone nowhere, to be loyal to him and, if he had asked them to appear in the television studio to say that a crushing defeat was not such a bad outcome. it may seem, then do without question, as was the case yesterday, justifying the unjustified.

Johnson is counting the days until the long parliamentary summer recess, because once the deputies go on vacation, there won’t be any more intrigue until September. In October it will be the Conservative Party congress, and if it gets past that fence, it may be too late to change leaders before the 2024 election (no one has put forward an alternative candidacy for now). It Tories they may decide that they are lost in the river. That after fourteen consecutive years in power, they are unlikely to be re-elected.

But deputies who risk their careers, and whose quality of life will be severely affected outside of Parliament (in most cases they have no other profession to turn to), do not share this nihilism, and prefer to do everything possible to save their skin. Yesterday’s result was a terrible premonition. At Wakefield the pendulum swung 12.6% of the Conservatives towards Labor. If the same happened in the general election, Keir Starmer would become prime minister with an absolute majority (albeit one seat).

Leading the opposition in the late 1970s, Thatcher invited Britain to take a trip to Europe to see for himself that things were much better on the continent. In Johnson’s case, it was he who got as far as possible (to Rwanda) following the election results from there. And he wasn’t going back to England, where of course things weren’t going well at the moment, for another ten days.