North of Tyne mayor Jamie Driscoll has accused Boris Johnson of operating a “political ponzi scheme” after the Prime Minister survived a confidence vote from his MPs but suffered huge political damage.
In an interview with radio station LBC, Mr Driscoll said the Prime Minister made increasing promises to the public that could never be met but that his operations had “run out of steam”. The mayor was speaking after the Prime Minister won a confidence vote from the Conservative parliamentary party but saw 148 of his MPs vote against him. Mr Johnson and other Cabinet ministers have called on the party to move on, but rebel MPs and some political commentators have warned that the Prime Minister’s authority has been too damaged for him to carry on.
Mr Driscoll said: “There’s an inexorable force that occurs in politics which is that if people haven’t got money in their pockets, they’re unhappy with the Government. If it was just cake, I think Boris Johnson would have survived. But it’s not. Before that we had the wallpaper scandal, before that we had the covering up of the corruption of Owen Paterson, which is what’s done more damage in the longer term.
