Friday, January 13, 2023
Is Boris Johnson gearing up for the chicken run?
Today's Times has an interesting piece of gossip with their associate political editor, Henry Zeffman suggesting that Boris Johnson could agree not to challenge Rishi Sunak in exchange for the promise of a safe seat at the next election.
Zeffman says that the plan is for Johnson to “leverage” his position over Sunak if the Conservatives did badly in the local elections in May:
Four months after he left Downing Street, a determined group of Johnson’s supporters still hope he will return as prime minister before the next general election.
One close ally of the prime minister said that the number of Conservative MPs who wanted Johnson to oust Sunak amounted to “only two dozen, maybe three dozen at most” and warned: “We would just look ridiculous if we changed PM again. Most people get that.”
Yet the former prime minister is unlikely to quit politics. “He would find it very hard to give up,” the ally conceded.
Instead, friends of Johnson are mulling ways in which he could agree an informal truce with Sunak which ensures that he is still in the Commons after the next election.
Johnson “will be in a strong position assuming we [the Conservatives] get hammered in May,” a friend said. “He can go to Rishi and say ‘give me a seat in exchange for good behaviour’”.
While Sunak does not wield direct power over candidate selection, in the immediate weeks before an election Conservative headquarters would have more power to effectively impose Johnson on any seat where an incumbent announced plans to retire.
The former prime minister has represented Uxbridge and South Ruislip since his return to the Commons in 2015 and secured a majority of just over 7,000 from Labour in 2019. However, the west London seat is widely believed to be vulnerable to a resurgent Labour Party.
A new constituency would be Johnson’s third: he represented Henley in Oxfordshire before becoming mayor of London in 2008. In recent weeks he has lobbied for Uxbridge’s local hospital and police station in the Commons chamber.
This phenomenon of MPs abandoning their seat for a safer one is not new and is known as the chicken run. It contains no guarantee though, of being returned to Parliament.
I remember in 1997, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Norman Lamont, having effectively torpedoed Tory election chances with black Wednesday, fleeing his marginal Kingston-Upon-Thames seat for the much safer berth of Harrogate and Knaresborough. Unfortunately for him, both seats were won by the Liberal Democrats.
Zeffman says that the plan is for Johnson to “leverage” his position over Sunak if the Conservatives did badly in the local elections in May:
Four months after he left Downing Street, a determined group of Johnson’s supporters still hope he will return as prime minister before the next general election.
One close ally of the prime minister said that the number of Conservative MPs who wanted Johnson to oust Sunak amounted to “only two dozen, maybe three dozen at most” and warned: “We would just look ridiculous if we changed PM again. Most people get that.”
Yet the former prime minister is unlikely to quit politics. “He would find it very hard to give up,” the ally conceded.
Instead, friends of Johnson are mulling ways in which he could agree an informal truce with Sunak which ensures that he is still in the Commons after the next election.
Johnson “will be in a strong position assuming we [the Conservatives] get hammered in May,” a friend said. “He can go to Rishi and say ‘give me a seat in exchange for good behaviour’”.
While Sunak does not wield direct power over candidate selection, in the immediate weeks before an election Conservative headquarters would have more power to effectively impose Johnson on any seat where an incumbent announced plans to retire.
The former prime minister has represented Uxbridge and South Ruislip since his return to the Commons in 2015 and secured a majority of just over 7,000 from Labour in 2019. However, the west London seat is widely believed to be vulnerable to a resurgent Labour Party.
A new constituency would be Johnson’s third: he represented Henley in Oxfordshire before becoming mayor of London in 2008. In recent weeks he has lobbied for Uxbridge’s local hospital and police station in the Commons chamber.
This phenomenon of MPs abandoning their seat for a safer one is not new and is known as the chicken run. It contains no guarantee though, of being returned to Parliament.
I remember in 1997, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Norman Lamont, having effectively torpedoed Tory election chances with black Wednesday, fleeing his marginal Kingston-Upon-Thames seat for the much safer berth of Harrogate and Knaresborough. Unfortunately for him, both seats were won by the Liberal Democrats.
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Another failed chicken runner was Iain Sproat in 1983. He abandoned Aberdeen South which he thought he was going to lose, to fight the new Roxburgh & Berwickshire seat, which included a large part of David Steel's old seat. Presumably he thought that David Steel's personal vote would peel away, but he lost to the Liberal Archy Kirkwood. And even worse for Sproat, his successor in Aberdeen South, Gerard Malone, held onto the seat for the Tories.
Both Sproat and Malone (who lost Aberdeen South in 1987) then found themselves what seemed to be safe seats in England for 1992 (Harwich and Winchester respectively). And both won that time, but lost in 1997 (to Labour and Lib Dems respectively).
Both Sproat and Malone (who lost Aberdeen South in 1987) then found themselves what seemed to be safe seats in England for 1992 (Harwich and Winchester respectively). And both won that time, but lost in 1997 (to Labour and Lib Dems respectively).
My favourite is Harrogate and Knaresborough, to which Norman Lamont skedaddled in 1997, only to be beaten by Phil Willis with a massive swing to the Lib Dems.
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