Please Advise! Can Endangered Conservative Leaders Be Saved?

[Editor’s note: Steve Burgess is an accredited spin doctor with a PhD in Centrifugal Rhetoric from the University of SASE, situated on the lovely campus of PO Box 7650, Cayman Islands. In this space he dispenses PR advice to politicians, the rich and famous, the troubled and well-heeled, the wealthy and gullible.]

Dear Dr. Steve,

It is a difficult time for Conservative leaders. Erin O’Toole is in trouble. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is in trouble.

O’Toole faces a caucus leadership review. And after an investigation into possibly illegal parties at 10 Downing Street, Johnson is facing resignation calls from all sides.

Can the respective Conservative bosses survive this peril?

Signed,

Pauline

Dear Pauline,

Say this for Boris Johnson — he knows if you’re going to get evicted, you might as well throw a rager and trash the place. Rocker Eddie Cochran once sang about having a Saturday night bash and subsequently being grounded by his parents. But as Cochrane concluded: “Who cares? C’mon everybody!” Good old Eddie had the courage of a Churchill.

Alas, poor Erin O’Toole isn’t even likely to get to have a proper booze-up before the landlord gives him the boot. A truck convoy just isn’t the same.

It is unlikely that readers of this publication will feel much sympathy for the Canadian Conservative leader. But Dr. Steve has some compassion. True, O’Toole has not been particularly consistent — ideologically he has wandered about like a British cabinet minister staggering home from 10 Downing Street after a big Friday night.

But remember who O’Toole has been dealing with. It wasn’t so long ago that the Conservative Party of Canada came within two percentage points of going full Maxime Bernier. Like it or not, in 2022, O’Toole is what passes for a progressive Canadian Conservative.

A CBC senior parliamentary reporter is among those suggesting that the Conservative caucus revolt is indeed coming from the right, inspired in part by O’Toole’s support for the ban on conversion therapy.

That’s fitting. Some Conservative MPs must feel that they themselves have been put through a political conversion therapy. There seems to be a solid constituency within the caucus that is experiencing People’s Party envy. They look wistfully at Bernier’s shameless flaunting of his unbound political id and wish that they too could come out of the mainstream closet and get all freaky-fringey.

Whoever succeeds O’Toole will either take the Trump/Bernier path or face the same awkward game of political Twister that is currently tying O’Toole in knots. Betting on a more progressive Conservative party would be like going all in on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for Super Bowl 2023.

As for the U.K.’s Prime Minister Knees-Up, after all his hair-raising antics the British public are finally ready to give Johnson the brush off. This week the House offered up one of those rare moments of political theatre that season ticket holders live for. It happened when Theresa May stood from the Conservative benches to ask the prime minister a question.

May had preceded Johnson as prime minister and, as so often happens there, had been driven out of office after a humiliating torrent of abuse, much of it led or at least suborned by Johnson himself. And now here she stood, like Banquo’s Ghost. Everyone knew the rules, she said. Was the prime minister guilty of ignorance or arrogance? Having placed the knife elegantly between her successor’s shoulder blades, she then sat down to enjoy her popcorn. How wonderful it must have tasted.

Andrew Scheer would like a handful of that hot buttered corn himself. The CBC parliamentary reporter has also reported that should O’Toole be deposed, Scheer would like to take the role of Once and Future King, assuming the position of interim leader. O’Toole’s grave isn’t even dug yet, and Scheer is already practising his dance moves for the cemetery. Conservatives everywhere are beginning to understand why deposed Roman emperors were not generally issued a sword and allowed to take a seat in the Senate.

There’s something sad and puzzling about all this — the British case in particular. Why are U.K. voters suddenly mad at Boris Johnson for being who he has always been? Yes, Dr. Steve understands, wild parties enjoyed by a national leader who is sternly warning other people not to attend Granny’s funeral represent the kind of arrogant hypocrisy that resonates like an aluminum bat on a garbage can. But what did they expect from Johnson? When you vote for Bertie Wooster, you don’t automatically get Jeeves.

Johnson was a man who practically celebrated the role of trust-fund twit. He is a dilettante’s dilettante and never really pretended otherwise. Frat parties at 10 Downing? About as surprising as another bankrupt Trump casino. And Johnson was a Brexiteer. If the British people didn’t show Johnson the door over Brexit, Dr. Steve has little sympathy for their anger now.

Still and all, it’s a fair cop, as our U.K. friends say. In politics, parties and parties don’t mix. It’s right there in the names. Would anyone go to a birthday celebration if the invitation said Conservative party? Would you attend a theme bash if the theme was Labour? No. Politics is serious business.

Now for both O’Toole and Johnson, it appears the party is over. If you are looking forward to what comes next, you must be fond of hangovers.

UPDATE: As it turned out, Erin O'Toole lasted about as long as an empty Ottawa parking space. He lost the leadership review by a vote of 73-45. Greta Thunberg probably could have done better. O'Toole may cling to the hope that tomorrow morning he will once again be Conservative leader and the radio will be playing "I Got You Babe." But no. This political Groundhog Day simply means that the Conservatives will decapitate themselves again and again and again...