This was originally posted 7 years ago. Opinions, facts and reality may have changed.
This is a post about politics. Except it’s not really.
Let me explain.
Last night, Channel 4 held a televised “hustings” for all the candidates in the current Conservative leadership contest.
Well, not quite all of them.
A certain Mr B Johnson declined to appear and was represented by an empty podium.
So bad result for Bozza then?
Hardly. The other five candidates constantly used Johnson as a benchmark. They would do ‘x’ differently to him, they wouldn’t do ‘y’ etc. The former foreign secretary, former mayor and former journalist dominated proceedings, and the other candidates looked weaker because of it.
They were campaigning against someone who wasn’t even there. And, by doing so, they were recognising that he was the competition, not the other people on stage.
In essence, they were accepting their place in the pecking order and competing against each other to take the second place on the final ballot paper that will go out to Tory party members in a few weeks.
Last week’s first round vote placed Johnson as the frontrunner to be the next prime minister. Last night’s Channel 4 debate merely confirmed this. And he wasn’t even there.
Sometimes you don’t need to sell yourself. You let your brand – and your competitors – do the work for you.