How the Tories can salvage ‘Brand Boris’

Brand Boris is in trouble. It wasn't long ago that Boris Johnson could do no wrong, having won his party a thumping majority at the last election. Even when some mishap played out in public – like being stranded on a zip wire or falling in a stream – the public still seemed to love this irrepressible japester. Now Brits are more likely to boo than cheer him. Despite winning a Tory vote of confidence this week, he looks like a bruised and battered boxer who’s just struggled to a narrow points victory. Is there any way for him to rebuild his brand?

The advertising industry has involved itself successfully in politics ever since Saatchi & Saatchi helped propel Margaret Thatcher into Downing Street. Years later, I was part of the team that did the same thing for Tony Blair. 

The strategy of getting Blair into No. 10 was a masterclass in cunning. With surprisingly few policies to talk about, we took the Tories’ most popular ideas, removed the blue packaging, carefully re-wrapped them in red and replace the ‘r’ in ‘Tory’ with an ‘n’. Boris won’t even have to do this. Recent events have forced the government to adopt policies more readily associated with Labour: taxing, spending and paying millions of voters 80 per cent of their salaries to stay at home. Given this astonishing largesse, Boris could legitimately ask why anyone would want to vote Labour.

With Blair’s campaign, however, came a powerful culture of groupthink, of always being resolutely ‘on message’. Oppressive as this was, Boris could do with a shadowy figure combining Machiavelli and Mandelson to enforce unity and snuff out the merest hint of dissent. Where's Dominic Cummings when you need him?

So if Boris does survive as Tory leader and go head-to-head against Keir Starmer at the next election, what form should his campaign take? His best bet, like that bruised and battered boxer in his next bout, is to come out fighting.

Boris must continue to ridicule the opposition mercilessly. This worked like a charm for both Thatcher and Blair. His campaign needs to play on endless loop that now infamous clip of Keir Starmer struggling to explain what a 'woman' is. It must also focus on Nicola Sturgeon’s less-than-stellar economic record and the shamefully divisive nature of her more anti-English sentiments. The Tories should also put up some posters showing pictures of Sir Ed Davey and Caroline Lucas, then offer a cash prize to anyone who can identify them. It can then pose the deadly serious question: 'Would you really want these people running the country?'

Alternatively, Boris could court the sympathy vote. Few prime ministers have had to deal with a pandemic and this one very nearly cost the poor man his life. Yet valiantly, he soldiered on. Britain's Covid record compares quite well with those of other countries. It wasn’t the best but it certainly wasn’t the worst. Boris should continue to highlight the success of the vaccine rollout and the way he freed us from the devastation of lockdowns earlier and more sensibly than other leaders.

He could also go further afield and fly the flag: not the Union flag, but the Ukrainian one. The Tories should keep pointing to Boris’s bold and principled (I know, not a word you’d usually associate with him) response to the Russian invasion which less courageous leaders were then forced to follow. He should mention his enormous popularity in Kyiv and get Ukraine's president Zelensky to provide the voiceover.

Boris could even try another tactic: casting himself as 'Your Humble Public Servant'. A dedicated, flawed but human servant of the people who was pressurised into passing rules which he always felt were too stringent. He could appeal to the fact that all of us flouted Covid rules in some way, then finish with a Churchillian flourish: 'If we refuse to forgive those who have done wrong, if we deny them the chance of redemption, what kind of society are we?'

Above all, he needs to keep it simple.'Get Brexit done' resonated with millions of voters in 2019 who were fed up with Brexit shenanigans and keen to move on.

This government have already been successful – perhaps too successful – with deploying simple messaging. 'Stay Home. Save Lives' terrified the populace into compliance. Could a similarly simple campaign terrify them out of voting for the opposition?

To stand any chance at all, Boris needs to take a take a lesson from the advertising industry: take an angle, like those above, that has even the tiniest grain of truth, then just simplify and exaggerate. Simplify and exaggerate, that’s all we do. And if there’s one politician who’s always shown a talent for simplifying and exaggerating, it’s Boris Johnson.