It was a vote the PM was desperate to avoid.
And when it came, one that Boris Johnson was keen to put behind him quickly, calling the vote as soon as possible after the trigger threshold (54 letters of no confidence) had been reached, and then declaring the result “decisive” and “convincing” once it was over.
Mr Johnson is a leader who is clear he has won and who wants to draw a line under this whole sorry saga and move on.
But the PM knows too, despite his bravado, that 148 MPs declaring no confidence in his leadership is a body blow.
His supporters are left privately disappointed, and so they should be. Boris Johnson’s victory on Monday was less convincing than that of Theresa May’s confidence vote in 2018 when she commanded the support of 63 per cent of her MPs against 59 per cent for the current PM. Six months after that vote Ms May was forced to resign.
To really have had any hope of turning the page on Monday, the PM would have needed a far bigger show of…
