Political Strategy or Political Cock Up?

So, is it all part of some cunning plan?  Losing three votes in a row in Commons, losing your majority as a result of withdrawing the whip from several of your longest-serving MPs and behaving like a blustering buffoon during your first Prime Minister's Questions, that is.  Because there is an argument that the events of the past few days are playing out more or less as Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings have planned them.  The Commons' passing anti 'No Deal' legislation clearly positions Boris and the Tories as the 'hardline' brexit party, thereby sidelining Farage's rabble, sorry, Brexit Party, while expelling all those Tory rebels effectively purges the party of its Brexit moderates.  The Fixed Term Parliaments Act, cooked by his pal 'Call Me Dave' Cameron, while preventing Boris from calling an election, is also, in effect, keeping him in Number Ten, despite not having a majority, as he knows it unlikely that those ex-Tory MPs will support a Labour 'no confidence' motion (the only other realistic route to a change in government), as that could put Corbyn in Number Ten.  By rejecting a general election through their opposition or abstention during the vote on it, the opposition have left themselves open to charges of 'cowardice', etc.  As for his PMQs performance, well, for a lot Brexiteers and the right-wing press, it is precisely this 'knockabout' political style which they love.

Thus, it could be argued that Boris is where he wants to be in terms of positioning himself and the rump of his party in anticipation of an inevitable election.  The fact is that Brexit itself is neither here nor there, it is merely a means to an end for Johnson.  The real prize is a general election victory which could secure him an overall majority and four years in power.  Indeed, some of us have always believed that 'Brexit' was a 'Trojan Horse' for the extreme right to mobilise around and gain some foothold in popular opinion. To that end, it has been extraordinarily successful, with the Tory party having lurched to the right in dramatic fashion.  Whether Johnson's strategy will work, remains to be seen.  If, indeed, what we are seeing is a strategy and not just a product of his egotistical arrogance.  Which is equally probable.  We just don't know.  Maybe he and Cummings really believed that the threat of expulsion would deter those Tory rebels from voting against the government.  If so, their strategy has spectacularly backfired.  It has also created the possibility of splitting the Tory vote in several otherwise safe Tory seats, if the incumbent now not Tory MPs choose to stand again, as independents.  Anyway, right now, the odds seem to be in favour of another delay to Brexit and a general election in either late October or November.  Which would probably result in another hung parliament, from which God knows what kind of governing coalition might emerge.