Boris Johnson 'plotting' may help beleaguered Prime Minister
The Tories go into survival mode with little appetite for another leadership race or a fresh national poll they might lose.
Sunday 11 June 2017 14:50, UK
"Tripe" is what Boris Johnson had to say about the reports he was plotting to oust Theresa May.
But the damage was done, with a renewed flurry of speculation that
But strangely, the Foreign Secretary's manoeuvres seem to be shoring up Mrs May's rather precarious position.
She may be the walking wounded but the party is not ready to kill her off - yet.
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One exasperated senior minister said: "People don't like to see someone putting self interests above national interest. He's self-obsessed."
The more pressing issue for the Conservative Party is that it needs to form a government.
The Prime Minister dispatched her chief whip Gavin Williamson to Belfast for talks with the Democratic Unionists on Saturday.
"Most colleagues don't think the public would be impressed if we spend the next two months in an internal party debate on a leadership election," Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 backbench committee of MPs, told me.
"We need to fall behind the Prime Minister and work as best we can."
That's not to say the party aren't fuming.
Over the weekend, MPs have been calling and texting - privately furious about the election campaign that left her short of an overall majority and 12 MPs down.
You can gauge the level of anger by the fact the Prime Minister was
Mrs May is still in Downing Street, but she is no longer in power.
As veteran Conservative MP Keith Simpson put it, the party has moved into survival mode.
"A successful deal with the DUP will steady the ship," he said.
Why? Because MPs in marginal seats don't want another leadership election, let alone another General Election in autumn that the Conservatives might lose.
Very simply, this election has left Mrs May with no moral authority and Jeremy Corbyn as a now credible alternative.
He is level pegging with Mrs May on the matter of who would make the best Prime Minster.
At the beginning of the election campaign she was 29 points ahead, according to figures from YouGov.
Never underestimate the Tories' survival instinct.
The party will fall behind her - for now - because the alternative is so much worse for them.