In British football, supporters are obsessed with the idea that a great former player will make a great manager when they retire. That they can drive a team to success as a manager by sheer force of personality and will.
The classic examples of this are former players who were tough tackling “no nonsense”, all action, “alpha male” midfielders, eg. Graeme Souness, Bryan Robson, Roy Keane and Steven Gerrard.
The concept that managers should have to think simply doesn’t come into the equation. Thinking will not be needed, apparently, because these are great players and they won’t have to think, they just are.
Predictably, these former great players turn out to be shit managers, because thinking very definitely is required to be a manager and these former great players are rubbish at it, and are easily outfoxed by former mediocre players who have the ability to think.
The Tory party is trapped in this exact mode of thinking. They want a tough tackling, no nonsense midfielder. They want Churchill.
Boris Johnson just is, they think (and I use the word in its loosest possible sense). He won’t have to think, he’ll be able to lead through sheer force of personality, with no thinking at all involved. This is Brexit in a nutshell.
Boris Johnson as Tory leader will be the managerial career of Roy Keane. A headstrong moron prone to frequent temper tantrums, with no idea what he’s doing.
Meanwhile, Corbyn is Big Mick McCarthy - written off, ridiculed, but a man who conducts himself with quiet dignity - he is shrewd - and he is a survivor, a thinker and a winner.