Non-golfers may not be familiar with the concept of a “mulligan”. A mulligan is a woeful golf shot. Sometimes it doesn’t get off the ground. Sometimes it goes backwards. A mulligan’s single unifying characteristic is being so embarrassing that everyone agrees to pretend that it never happened at all. With the shout of, “Mulligan!” a shot is excised from the scorecard – and the fleeting catastrophe is airbrushed into amnesia. It’s a free play, a lifeboat, a do-over.
But how many mulligans are you allowed? This is the question the Conservative Party has been facing. The Tories used up one mulligan: it was called Boris Johnson. But then their “lifeboat” – Liz Truss – was immediately revealed as even worse. When you’ve fluffed two shots in a row, what’s the way out?
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