Boris cannot lead the Conservatives

Boris cannot lead the Conservatives

As a Conservative the issue of who should be the next leader of the Conservative party means a lot to me, I want the Conservatives to win a majority in 2015 or at least be the largest party in a hung parliament.  If they are not then David Cameron will step aside a new man will get the job and even if David Cameron does return to No 10 there is no guarantee he will be PM by 2020.  Anybody who has read a newspaper in the past year knows that one of the front-runners for the Conservative leadership is Boris Johnson.  Boris Johnson cannot be allowed to lead the Conservative party and if he does we may as well hand the keys to No 10 to whoever happens to be leading Labour.

Boris Johnson looked like a strong contender for the leadership only last year but now I believe he is now dropping behind, with candidates such as Michael Gove look like a much stronger prospect.  Several things have happened in the last year that have weakened Boris as a candidate and made him look like a potentially disastrous leader.  Firstly a documentary about Boris Johnson was released which highlighted all the bad things about Boris, followed up by the disastrous Eddie Mair interview about the same documentary (in case you missed the interview here is a link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj686CmGGSA).  Party leaders need to be squeaky clean, yes occasionally they can make a mistake at some point in their career, but Boris Johnson’s list of political crimes is very long.  You have his affairs which are a no no, for a politician, then you have his misquote in the Times which got him fired this makes him look untrustworthy, there is the incident where he provided information to allow someone to be beaten up, and he comes across as a bit of an oaf.

Now I understand that Boris is not an oaf and is a very intelligent man and becoming the Mayor of London was a huge achievement for any Conservative only topped by being re-elected.  Nevertheless, his mannerisms that make him so popular as London Mayor are the sort of behaviours that a PM would never get away with, also the list of Political crimes he has committed will be used by Labour to make a big stick which they will repeatedly hit Boris with.  As much as I used to support Boris Johnson I believe his past is to toxic for him to be a viable leader he would be a liability come election time and the Conservative Party has better options.  We have Education Secretary Michael Gove, he has shown himself to be a shrewd tactician and a reformer, trying to change our education system without using the classic Tory argument of Grammar schools.  There is William Hague he was a disaster as leader the first time around but he is older now and is a modern day big beast, not only that there are few better debaters in the commons than William Hague, however he has already said he will be retiring from politics soon so maybe he won’t run.  Adam Afriyie has been mentioned in recent months as a potential leader, I have written about him before and I don’t believe it is his time yet.  Although I have changed my mind on one thing he would be better for the party than Boris Johnson, I still think he would lose to the likes of Michael Gove but is a really strong candidate for the leader after next.  He is a self-made man, he is a good speaker, he gives a good interview, and he is great at articulating his views.  These are just a few alternatives to Boris Johnson the Parliamentary Conservative party is full of talent I have not even touched upon David Davis, Jessie Norman, Philip Hammond or Theresa May.  The Conservative party does not need Boris as its next leader and hopefully the party choses one of the many alternatives or we should prepare for a period in opposition.