ANALYSIS: Boris Johnson has pushed Tory MPs' patience to breaking point
3 min read
At 4.15pm yesterday, Boris Johnson was the toast of the Conservative Party conference.
After two days of morbid self-analysis punctuated by uninspiring podium speeches, the Foreign Secretary gave the Tory rank-and-file a timely reminder that they had, in fact, won the general election.
It wasn't the best speech of his political career - far from it - but Johnson did more than enough to earn the first heartfelt standing ovation of the annual jamboree.
All the psychodrama caused by his Daily Telegraph article and Sun interview were forgotten as the hall acclaimed their favourite son.
Fast forward two hours, however, and Boris was back to being Boris, telling a fringe event that the Libyan town of Sirte could be the next Dubai once they "clear the dead bodies away".
Nervous laughter filled the room and sensing that yet another Boris bollock had been dropped, Tory peer Baroness Stroud quickly urged to room to move onto the next question.
In an attempt to lessen the damage, Johnson took to Twitter - where else? - to insist he had been making a serious point about Daesh's habit of leaving booby-traps under the bodies of their dead fighters.
That led to the frankly embarrassing sight of Damian Green - one of the nicest men in the Cabinet - having to parrot Johnson's lame excuse as his morning broadcast round of interviews was hijacked by his errant Cabinet colleague.
Heidi Allen and Anna Soubry both called for Johnson to be sacked, but while they can easily be dismissed as the usual suspects, the comments of other ministers this morning have given a flavour of the intense irritation felt by Conservative MPs at their colleague's repeated misdemeanours.
Jeremy Hunt told the BBC: "It's not language that, er, as a government we support. Boris is Boris and that was very unfortunate language. I don't want to defend that."
Amber Rudd added: "It is very serious, what’s been going on in Libya, and the foreign secretary has clarified what he meant and I hope we can move on from that for now, until his next comment. He’s a distraction sometimes from the real stuff we’re trying to do."
Another Cabinet minister was even more forthright, telling PoliticsHome: "Boris has done himself a lot of damage with colleagues. Theresa was never going to sack him here, but if he keeps behaving like this she will be lobbied by MPs to get rid of him once we're back in Westminster."
That brought to mind a comment by another minister, who said earlier this week: "People who aspire to lead the Conservatives always forget who the audience is. It's not the membership, it's their colleagues in Parliament."
Boris Johnson may have survived this week, despite his best efforts. But will his time finally run out once the conference exhibition stands are packed away and the caravan moves on?
