211 MPs from the British Conservative Party expressed their confidence in party leader and Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday. One man tweeted the correct result an hour before it was announced: Professor Jon Tonge of the University of Liverpool. He then took to Twitter to express his regret that he had not bet money on his bet. According to Tonge, Johnson is not out of the woods yet and will be prime minister in the autumn.
Jon Tonge teaches British and Irish politics at the University of Liverpool. On Monday, he tweeted 58 minutes before the announcement of the result of the confidence vote on Boris Johnson’s prediction. He was all over it with the 211 votes or 59 percent in favor of the conservative party leader. As far as the votes against, he was wrong with 147, because one more MP was going to vote more than expected.
Punishment, and Professor Tonge therefore received a lot of reactions on Twitter. He was asked to predict the lotto and horse races. They compared him to Nostradamus and called him the “Mystic Meg of political science”, after the stage name of Margaret Anne Lake, a well-known astrologer in the United Kingdom. He himself responded with British humor: “I didn’t bet (gasp)”. And also: “As my skeptical other half put it: ‘The first time you’re right since you married me’”. That of that bet, he thought. He told ‘The Guardian’: “I sometimes take political bets, but ironically I didn’t do that on Monday, because I was busy calculating the result. So it is a bit bittersweet.”
Tonge is now venturing into a new prediction in ‘The Guardian’. According to the professor, it will be over with Boris Johnson in politics within six months. “I would be surprised if he was still prime minister in the fall. I’d say six months, but if anyone can pull it off, it’s Johnson.” He clarified: “This is the political escape king of the political escape kings. His problem is that the privileges committee will not mince words when it comes to whether he has misled parliament. And that’s probably enough for him.”
Tonge refers to the ongoing parliamentary inquiry into the scandal surrounding government employees’ parties during lockdowns. His involvement in what has come to be known as the ‘party gate’ across the Channel has not cost him his political career for the time being – after a police investigation and after Monday’s confidence vote. But if the parliamentary investigation shows that he, as head of government, has deliberately lied to parliament, then the pressure to resign will increase enormously again.
Jon Tonge
@JonTonge
The political scientist is not ready for his test. Last month he was almost as accurate in his predictions of the outcome of the elections in Northern Ireland. “I said Sinn Féin would get 26 seats and that would be 27. I said the DUP would get 24 seats and they got 25,” he recalls. He also only had one in the Northern Ireland parliamentary election in 2017 seat next to.
His reasoned guess on Monday gives Professor Tonge a “warm feeling” of professional pride, but at the same time he regrets that he missed one vote against. “That annoys me because it would have been nice if I had it all right.” He is already covering himself for his next bet on Twitter: “I have not specified in which fall he will be gone.”
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