Boris Johnson is safe as leader of the Conservative Party for at least one year having won the vote of no confidence yesterday. The 211 to 148 win by the PM is a win but it is not a massively decisive vote. It’s a margin of only 63 votes and represents a situation where approximately 40% of the Parliamentary Tory Party wants the Prime Minister gone.

There are good reasons for wanting the Boris Johnson gone, he’s like, in the words of Dominic Cummings, a bit of a wobbly wheeled shopping trolley who veers in the direction that he’s pushed when pushed hard enough. He’s a litany of failure at least from a conservative perspective. His adherence to the cult of net zero has seen massive price rises for energy and excessive waste on energy sources, such as wind power, that are both unreliable and contribute little to the nation’s energy budget. His government has failed to tackle monstrous levels of immigration both legal and illegal despite his party promising to do so and has approached every problem that the government is approached with either domestically or internationally with a tactic of throw money at it for domestic issues and open the country up to all and sundry for international problems like Afghanistan, Ukraine and Hong Kong.

The problem is that the Conservative Party is pretty well devoid of trustworthy talent. The alternative is a PM who is one of the ever plotting Remainers or a less than trustable snake like Gove. Unless a proper conservative comes to light from the back benches during the course of the next year then it’s likely that Boris Johnson will be leading the party into the next General Election which will be held at a time when all the effects of the Government’s cock ups from energy to culture to an increasingly discredited lockdown policy, will be making their effects felt. Boris Johnson has been an election winner in the past but I fail to see how he can be so next time.

It’s easy to make promises at an election time especially if you are, as Boris Johnson was in 2019, promoting yourself as the one true keeper and respecter of the nation’s decision to leave the EU. However it’s much harder to gain re-election if you and your government, as will be the case at the next General Election is associated with idiotic energy policies, fiscal incontinence, ponces flooding across the borders, public sector waste, green virtue signalling, high taxes and piss poor public services. The Conservative Party will end up paying the price for the many failures of Boris Johnson’s administration and the country will suffer from the almost inevitable electoral come back by Labour should Labour start to paper over the cracks and make themselves look vaguely electable again.

Even if there is a rule change in the Tory party and a new Vote of No Confidence could then be held in six months rather than a year’s time then it might not hit at the heart of the Tories malaise. To deal with that problem the party needs not just to change leader, but dump the skipload of iffy policies that have damaged Boris Johnson’s administration. Even with a new leader I can’t see myself voting Tory at the next General Election, not even holding my nose whilst doing so or being scared into voting Tory because of the threat from Labour. I will vote for a smaller party or an independent. OK I might not be casting a vote for the winner but my conscience would be less troubled by doing that than by voting Tory.

Why should I vote Tory in order to have a sensible energy policy which includes coal, oil and gas from under our feet or an effective border security policy or affordable taxation and spending policies when this is not what the Tories are likely to offer. Maybe if the Tories did realise that they’ve backed some pretty wrong horses policy wise over the last decade and change then maybe they’ll get my vote. But I can’t see the Tories doing anything but committing the country to committing suicide, a policy that they’ve got away with implementing for far too long.