The Boris strategy needs to change

Had Boris Johnson simply wished to use the current vacancy for prime minister to remind us all of his superstar status then it would be mission accomplished already. The mere confirmation that the great blond bombshell was mulling an instant comeback transformed a prospect I likened a fortnight ago to the preposterous Bobby Ewing shower scene in the 1980s TV soap Dallas into a 2-1 shot with bookmakers.

Scores of Conservative MPs came out in his support. Across provincial England, vox-popping BBC reporters encountered a groundswell of opinion wishing for his return – most notably a Birmingham fishmonger who pointed at the camera before saying, Lord Kitchener style, ‘your country needs you’. But Boris being Boris – a would-be world king – this may not be enough. He really wants to be PM again. In which case, he has the sales job of his life to pull off over the next 48 hours. Because as he touches down at Gatwick – the ego has landed – he walks straight into some formidable headwinds.

Many MPs on the Tory right - who do not have an orthodox candidate of their own and might have been expected to lean towards the swashbuckling Brexiteer – are instead leaning towards the candidacy of Rishi Sunak. This seems particularly true of MPs who supported Kemi Badenoch or Suella Braverman in the last contest. ‘Not viable’ is the term that suddenly crops up in my own conversations with such people about a Boris restoration. Media heavyweights on the right are also coming out against such a turn of events – not just obsessive anti-Borisites on the Times, but also Andrew Neil in the Mail and Charles Moore in the Telegraph.

That the impending privileges committee inquiry into whether Johnson deliberately lied to parliament is being publicly exploited by the likes of Labour’s Chris Bryant as a weapon to deter Tories from supporting him is a clear indication that opposition parties at least view him as a wild card who could yet scupper their path to power. But a bigger factor cooling support for him is the state of the public finances and the wider economy post the disastrous Truss-Kwarteng interlude. It is being said that a second Johnson administration would be seen in financial markets as a much less safe bet than a Sunak-Hunt partnership and would thus lumber the UK with an interest rate premium on its vast borrowings that it can ill afford. That is hard to argue against.

On the plus side for Johnson, some important and credible names in the party with big followings of their own have come out in his favour in the last 24 hours, including Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace. While the latter gave only a qualified endorsement he did also highlight the strongest of the ‘sensible’ arguments for Boris – that he is the man who won a still-unexpired mandate from the British public and no other candidate can say that.

But to get the necessary backing of at least 100 Tory MPs, Johnson is going to have to convince colleagues that he has learned lessons from his precipitous summer downfall; that a better, wiser Boris is returning following a period of profound reflection. This will surely involve a promise to pull together a far more experienced cabinet – featuring ‘big beasts’ prepared to challenge him – and to allow realism to share the stage with boosterism in the approach to the public finances by giving Hunt or Sunak primacy over spending and borrowing decisions.

Was I running his embryonic campaign, I’d be telling Johnson to compose a big newspaper op-ed for publication tomorrow setting out his new prospectus, and arranging an interview with a heavyweight broadcast political editor too. It is essential that he reminds potential followers of his compelling phrase-making powers and on-screen charisma if he wishes to fend off the many logical arguments against him. It may be as late as Monday lunchtime before we find out for sure if Johnson’s WhatsApp message to his ally Sir James Duddridge (‘We are going to do this. I’m up for it’) has come to fruition or if it is to be another case of ‘that person cannot be me’ – the line he used when withdrawing from the 2016 leadership contest.

Can his off-the-cuff magic really defeat a formidable Sunak network that has remained in a battle-ready state throughout the autumn and is pulling in fresh and credible parliamentary supporters by the hour? He certainly won’t do so if he allows his more unrestrained backers to bad-mouth Sunak, who is recognised by most Tories as an authoritative and straightforward figure. Most of the Conservative parliamentary party – and probably the grassroots too – has had enough of feuding and juvenile name-calling. A big offer to Sunak to be chief executive to his chairman of the board – the same arrangement that Jeremy Hunt comically suggested applied to him and the hapless Truss – may just swing it.

But the case for sitting this one out after an arresting display of silverback chest-thumping is at least as powerful. After all, Tory leadership races do come around faster and faster these days.