Tiverton And Honiton - The Curse Of Hodges

Early this morning, the singularly unpleasant Oliver Dowden, chairman of the Conservative Party, took out a king-size onion as he penned his letter to alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson resigning his post, to the relief of all those who wished it had happened rather earlier.

He's desperate, Dan

“It is with great sadness that I must resign as Chairman of the Conservative Party with immediate effect” he blubbered, before adding “Yesterday’s Parliamentary by-elections are the latest in a run of very poor results … We cannot carry on with business as usual. Someone must take responsibility”.

And the someone was not going to be Bozo, who has already declared that, despite losing the “Red Wall” seat of Wakefield to Labour, and, rather more humiliatingly, seeing the Lib Dems overturn a 24,000 Tory majority to win the rural seat of Tiverton and Honiton by 6,000 votes, he will “keep going”.

But the loss of Dowden, who had been a full-throated and especially nasty cheerleader for the PM, stoking up the culture war deflection machine and going to war on Woke - a word whose meaning he probably doesn’t know, and certainly doesn’t understand - will knock away another pillar of support.

Moreover, if the Lib Dems can turn a 24,000 Tory majority into a 6,000 lead of their own, no Tory is safe. Like usually unswerving Bozo loyalists Priti Patel in Witham and the fragrant (yes, it’s her again) Nadine Dorries in Mid Bedfordshire, not to mention smaller majorities like those of Dominic Raab in Esher and Walton, and Bozo himself in Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

Worst of all for Bozo, and so soon after he survived a no confidence vote in which more than 140 of his own MPs voted against his leadership, is that the result in Tiverton and Honiton will reopen the debate on whether it is time for him to leave 10 Downing Street. He will never resign of his own volition, though. The Tories will have to drag him out kicking and screaming.

So what might have cursed the campaign in the south west? Ah well. We do not have to look far for evidence: step forward the Mail on Sunday’s not even slightly celebrated blues artiste Whinging Dan Hodges, who visited the constituency and concluded that the Tories would retain the seat.

That’s the same Dan Hodges who said Jeremy Corbyn would not become Labour leader, that Remain would win the 2016 EU referendum, and that Hillary Clinton would beat Combover Crybaby Donald Trump for the US Presidency in 2016. The Hodges curse has a long and infamous history.

And it was no different when the Nostradamus of Northcliffe House cast his analytical net in the general direction of Tiverton and Honiton. “As the Honiton by-election approaches, true blue Devon's farming folk aren't quite ready to kiss Boris Johnson goodbye” declared the headline. And there was more.

“The sprawling rural constituency cascades all the way from the wilds of Exmoor down to the rugged Jurassic Coast. But I’m beginning to think reports that it will provide the backdrop to the Prime Minister’s political demise have been overstated”. Why so? Well, he’s not sure about those Lib Dems.

“I’m not detecting the sort of visceral anger over Partygate, or other issues, I was told to expect. It’s true the Lib Dems have the most visible presence. There are fields and barns displaying their distinctive orange signs proclaiming ‘Winning Here’. But are they?” Hodges no doubt earned the approval of his bosses at the MoS for that. But he had cursed Bozo.

Because, once more, The Curse Of Hodges had struck. The dreaded black spot had been placed upon Bozo, his hero from the days when Johnson was the very occasional Mayor of London. If Tiverton and Honiton spells the end for Bozo, it will not be unreasonable to claim that It Was Dan Wot Done It.

When another Dan Hodges wrong call comes up, the words of Winston Churchill on Austen Chamberlain inevitably come to mind: “He always played the game, and he always lost”. But if his curse rids UK politics of the worst Prime Minister ever, he will have done his country a great service.

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