Boris is like a coiled black mamba, ready to strike,’ says an ally of the former prime minister. ‘He is watching David Cameron stride cheerfully around the world stage, while he sits in exile and the party’s poll ratings sink lower and lower. They brought back the wrong ex-PM.’
But Boris Johnson is in a bind, and the mamba remains coiled – at least for now.
He is loving domestic life in his moated manor house deep in the Oxfordshire countryside with wife Carrie and their three children, and watching his post-Downing Street earnings head towards the £8 million mark. His column in yesterday’s Daily Mail was dedicated to the plight of Donny the duckling – a world away from Westminster’s venomous snakes.
For now, Boris Johnson is loving domestic life with wife Carrie. They are pictured on a ski trip last month
Johnson supporters say the local election results showed a ‘Boris bounce’ in the form of victory for Tory Mayor Ben Houchen on Teesside after Johnson made a ‘targeted’ intervention on social media for him.
Johnson regarded the move as an act of ‘personal loyalty’, as he had been ‘supportive’ during his premiership.
It has led even One Nation MPs on the Left of the party to consider calling for Johnson’s help in their constituencies. One moderate said: ‘Having Boris out there urging people not to split the vote by voting for Reform is powerful. With others, the reaction is, “He would say that, wouldn’t he”. But Boris can sell it.’
While Johnson hasn’t completely ruled out a pre-Election return to Parliament and the party leadership, time is fast running out for such a dramatic move.
His most likely course of action will be to watch and wait until Sir Keir Starmer has marched into Downing Street – and found out how tricky it is to wield power with the finances so stretched.
Then, after an interim Tory leader such as former home secretary Priti Patel has tried to steady the ship for a couple of years, he could sweep in and save the party.
‘By then he would finally have resolved his financial problems,’ says the ally.
‘He would be a better prime minister with that no longer on his mind.’ Johnson turns 60 next month; no longer in the first flush, certainly, but 17 years younger than his hero Winston Churchill when he became prime minister for the second time.
However, with the most recent YouGov poll putting the party on 18 per cent, just 3 per cent ahead of Nigel Farage’s band of Reform UK renegades, the danger is that there will not be a party left for him to lead.
This dire figure could fall even lower if Farage, as many expect, throws his hat personally into the Election ring by standing in Clacton, where local polling suggests he could finally win a parliamentary seat.
So, Johnson’s attention is turning to how he can shore up the Conservatives’ performance at the Election, without making it a hollow-sounding personal endorsement of Rishi Sunak.
His friends say it ‘is about helping the party – not Rishi’. One says: ‘Sunak has still not picked up the phone to ask him to help out. So it will be about defending the party’s values versus Labour. He wants to fire bullets at Starmer, but hasn’t been given the ammunition by Sunak.’ A source in the anti-Rishi camp says that ‘it is hard for Boris to tie himself to Rishi given that he has been texting rebel MPs to say “I agree with every word you have said” when they publicly criticise the Prime Minister’.
An ally added: ‘All the party grandees thought it was a coup bringing back Cameron as Foreign Secretary, but that was never going to move the dial. And so it has proved.’
The PM has, seemingly, been afforded breathing space over his embattled leadership by a ‘truce’ with the rebels who had been scheming to topple him since his sacking of Suella Braverman as Home Secretary in November. The plotters, who sat in high-end London eateries such as J Sheekey and Giovanni’s to draw up an infamous ‘grid of s***’ with which to assail the Government, claim to have conceded defeat and ‘gone to the pub’ – mainly because none of the suggested alternative leaders, such as Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch, looked likely to improve the polls.
Tory mayor Ben Houchen celebrates victory on Teesside on Friday, in what Johnson allies said was part of a 'Boris Bounce'
David Cameron visits Lviv, Ukraine, yesterday. 'All the party grandees thought it was a coup bringing back Cameron as Foreign Secretary, but that was never going to move the dial,' says a Boris ally
Appropriately, the ‘truce’ had been sealed in a Soho bar beloved of Westminster politicos: at the Arts Theatre Club, which specialises in music that topped the charts under Margaret Thatcher, a leading Tory rebel told a senior No 10 adviser that the war was over and offered an olive branch. The plotter, who was an ally of Ms Braverman, said: ‘You came for us. We didn’t have any choice,’ before adding: ‘But you’re right. It can’t go on like this.’
No 10 remains cautious, suspecting that this could all be part of the game. Certainly, senior Sunak advisers have not been relaxed about the prospect of MPs triggering a vote of confidence in the Prime Minister: backbenchers have discovered that their concerns about proposed new legislation have been taken unexpectedly seriously, which they have linked to a fear of them sending in confidence letters to Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee.
Potential leadership rivals are not exactly scrambling to replace him. Allies of Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt have been highlighting private polling in her constituency indicating that she will hold her seat in the Election, in an attempt to counter the argument that Ms Mordaunt must move now if she is to have any chance.
Referring to tomorrow’s anniversary of Mordaunt’s starring moment in the King’s Coronation, one ally said that she wants to be remembered for her ceremonial sword, not a dagger in Sunak’s back: ‘She knows she will never be leader if she is seen knifing him.’
Allies of Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt have been highlighting private polling in her constituency indicating that she will hold her seat in the election
Rishi Sunak with Ben Houchen's wife Rachel and baby Hannah after the Tory win on Teesside
MPs say that if, as now seems most likely, Sunak leads the party’s slow march to electoral death in the autumn, he should at least try to throw more policy ‘red meat’ to Tory members, such as scrapping inheritance tax.
MPs are also grumbling about the PM’s approach to tax cuts, with even the Chancellor privately admitting that cuts to National Insurance have not been rewarded. A source said: ‘Every time that Rishi makes a speech, he talks about National Insurance. It’s just not landing.’
Last week, Michael Gove, whose Surrey seat is vulnerable under polling projections, told Tory donors at a fundraising lunch to rally around the PM, saying: ‘It’s not lost until it’s lost.’
One MP said: ‘All that is left is for Sunak to shake up the Cabinet instead. But the problem is that there is not even any consensus on who he should bring in it.’
Another added: ‘If Boris does come back for the Election, it could end up with him, Cameron and a few other household names leading the charge, with poor Rishi left in the backroom. That won’t win us the Election, but it might avert total annihilation.’
A spokesman for Mr Johnson said: ‘Boris’s priority is campaigning for Ukrainian victory and lasting peace.
‘He is focused on that. He is also writing a book and speaking.’
A source added: ‘Any discussion of leadership plots, plans and strategies are not licensed by him. He voted Conservative in the elections on Thursday.’