By Rob Woodward: Make no mistake about what has happened. Boris Johnson now has 148 enemies out in the open. A little over 40 per cent of Tory MP’s – but even worse, over 70 per cent who are backbenchers with no role within the government itself voted against Johnson. No matter how his cabinet attempts to dress this up – this is a bad result.

Most of all – this is a bad result for the United Kingdom, and especially so for all of its law-abiding, hard-working people, struggling to keep their heads above water in a cost-of-living crisis that will go down in history as did the 1970s.

Britain faces many challenges. The hangover of Brexit needs a uniting message, excellent negotiators and most of all – a proper plan. The same could be said of the so-called ‘levelling-up’ agenda that the local government authority has said is not properly costed and has no real policy led targets that are achievable. Has everyone forgotten the effort and urgency the government put into COP26 and the climate crisis and what about the desperate plight of the NHS backlog, the 2 million long-Covid victims, mental health crisis and rapidly escalating poverty-stricken households as the cost-of-living crisis starve millions in just four months time? And whilst it is true that Johnson has taken a moral stand in Ukraine against Russia – that is also turning into a much more perilous situation than many other governments around the world give credit for.

It would be true to say that Johnson is not just a poor leader, his raison d’être is more about dividing than uniting and this will not change. From here, his government are now on perma-watch for the saboteurs.

The Johnson era will eventually go down in history as one limping from one crisis to another as it has for the last twelve months or so. It will now, for the rest of its time in office, be infighting. This is a government more concerned about survival than managing UK plc. And we know what to expect now. It’s all we’ve heard about – one scandal after another – dirty Russian money, wallpaper, proroguing parliament, lying to the Queen, undeclared donors and dodgy holidays along with rampant cronyism and corruption. Everything else has been a U-turn or ended in failure.

It was only a year ago that the Conservative by-election victory in the Labour stronghold of Hartlepool suggested Johnson had rallied the party behind his personal brand of populist Toryism. And here they are facing a wipeout to Labour in Wakefield and losing their massive majority in Tiverton to the LibDems in by-elections this month.

Next year, the local elections will be a disaster for the Tories where 3,500 counsellors are facing the wrath of an electorate feeling the real effects of the cost of living crisis. One can only assume another U-turn is coming – and more cash will be thrown at households prior to a drubbing.

What we have now is not a governing party with a policy agenda to serve the country but a bunker mentality designed to save its Ceasar from another night of back-stabbing. Johnson could conceivably stay in power until January 2025, the last month possible before a general election. Imagine that?

In the meantime, the Northern Ireland question needs cool, calm grown-ups in the room, our relationship with the EU needs the same and real politicians with real-world experience need to be managing our decade-defining never-ending crisis-stricken economy. The climate crisis and destabilised countries around the world has now caused over 100 million people to become displaced – double that of WW2 – and some want the sanctuary of the UK. Do we really think that the likes of Patel, Raab, Truss, Gove, Coffey, Dorries and Braverman are the best people for these challenges?

The truth is, Britain is still reeling from the 2008 bank-led crisis that saw a Tory government strangle the country with its dreadful austerity plan that failed. Eventually, it led to Brexit, the most damaging economic and constitutional crisis outside of war for several hundred years. This is now calculated by the OBR to cause a 4 per cent fall in GDP for at least another decade. It will equate to the longest loss of GDP against our peers since the war. Not even the depression of the 1920s made everyone suffer that long.

And who have we got to manage all these crises? A government unable to control its own MPs that, from now on, will see many defying the whips and voting against the government motivated by an existential threat at the next election that could see a wipeout and subsequent implosion.

This government will now manage policy on the basis of protecting its wounded leader without a care in the world for the country, its prospects or its future.

We all know Johnson is looking out for himself. We all know he has appointed those who could not possibly reach such high office without being loyal sycophants.

It’s simply not possible that Johnson would do the right thing and go for the sake of the country. In a time of crisis, this is the very last person you want at the helm of a ship facing a perfect storm. And a perfect storm is what we are all facing.