By BAGEHOT
AFTER TWO days of voting Tory MPs have chosen two of their colleagues to go through to the next stage of the leadership election: a run-off when the party’s 160,000 members will choose the winner. They are Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary. Mr Johnson got more than half the votes with 160. Mr Hunt just pipped Michael Gove, the environment secretary, with 77 votes to 75.
Boris Johnson’s ascent to the prime ministership now looks even more likely than it was a week ago. Mr Johnson’s biggest problem was always winning over his fellow Conservative MPs. He’s never been much of a team player: he has devoted more time to lining his own pockets (in one year he earned £540,000 from journalism and public speaking) than to campaigning for his colleagues. He’s also been a lacklustre and lazy performer at the dispatch box in parliament. But he is adored by the party members in the country who cherish his Bertie Wooster-with-a-thesaurus speeches and flamboyant style. They also agree with him on Brexit.
