Last week I had to make the hardest decision of my political career – and one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make in my life. I have supported the Prime Minister since he launched his campaign to become leader of the Conservative Party almost exactly three years ago. I have worked with him closely in that time, including two and a half years as his Parliamentary Private Secretary. I have always wanted him to succeed and, for a long time, I believed that he would, that he would lead my party for many years to come. His achievements have been colossal. He and the people around him managed, in the teeth of a furiously difficult parliamentary situation, to win a General Election and take us out of the EU as the referendum of 2016 had required. Within weeks of this being complete, Covid-19 had broken out and the country had fallen into worst crisis since 1945.
In part thanks to his leadership, Oxford University and Astra Zeneca developed one of the very first vaccines and thanks to the NHS and the Army, one of the best vaccine rollouts in the world. Cruel fate meant that on the same day that the last coronavirus restrictions were lifted, Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, bringing havoc to the energy and food markets and bringing terrible pain to the people of that country and to the economies of the world.
Boris Johnson’s accomplishments are there for all to see. Lenin said, “There are decades in which nothing happens, and there are weeks in which decades happen.” Boris Johnson ruled through several such weeks. (We joke in Westminster that the years through which we are currently living are “dog years” – seven to the one.) Despite all of this, the repeated mishandling of other issues by his operation meant that by Tuesday evening last week it was very clear that he had lost the confidence of the parliamentary party, that he could no longer govern and that for the good of the party and the country he needed to stand aside. There are only so many resets that politics will allow. There are only so many times one can put one’s ministers and MPs in impossible positions. There are only so many excuses. When compounded errors prevent an administration from ruling properly and prevent it from communicating its successes, it is time for a change of administration.
I retain all of my personal affection for the outgoing Prime Minister but I could no longer in good conscience serve him as a minister when I could no longer defend the decisions and mistakes that had been made – and for that reason I resigned as an education minister on Tuesday afternoon. It will give me more time to spend with my constituents in Brentwood and Ongar – and, for that, at least, I am glad.
By the time you read this, the first round of voting in the leadership contest will have taken place. I am supporting Kemi Badenoch – a great Essex MP and one of the most impressive people I have ever met. She is the embodiment of all that is good about our country and would be a wonderful fresh start. In betting terms, she is an outsider but often the best people are.
