Thread: Boris Johnson comeback?

From today's "i"

Boris Johnson is threatening to split the Tories all over again – and he'll be loving every minute

Boris Johnson is threatening to split the Tories all over again – and he’ll be loving every minute

It’s clear that the former prime minister actively wants this game to be played, even by those who are opposed to his return

January 10, 2023 6:15 am(Updated 11:58 am)

It’s rare to encounter an extreme sport which can also be played in the safety of your own home, over dinner with friends or in the pub. The activity otherwise known as “discussing whether Boris Johnson will come back” seems to qualify, however.


Whether you play it with a sense of morbid fascination, or (nowadays the more niche pursuit) with genuine excitement, the odds are that in recent months many readers will have dipped at least a toe into the pursuit – or, less happily, had the discussion thrust upon them by an even more horrified or enthused player.


But beware – unlike other extreme sports, like skydiving or motorbike stunt riding, you can be plunged into this activity unilaterally by someone else at a moment’s notice. Suddenly you are plummeting inexorably into wondering whether a Boris comeback might actually happen.


I can understand why this might appeal to, say, agoraphobic adrenaline junkies who must seek their thrills indoors, those particularly keen on Johnson himself, or just outright dinner party terrorists. It is, however, a professional hazard rather than a personal peccadillo for political journalists, for obvious reasons. But as the veteran/victim of more than a few rounds of this game in recent weeks, I can reveal that everyone is doing it all wrong.
Whether the former prime minister might want to come back is self-evident when you consider how many people have been willing to go for that top job. How and when it might happen are entertaining to explore as sub-genres of rubber-necking speculative fiction, offering as they do an opportunity to both display one’s knowledge and imaginative capacity, and to project personal hopes and prejudices in a purely hypothetical way. But the real meat – I hesitate to promise that any outright enjoyment is on offer – lies in pondering why this game is being played at all.


Circumstantial factors have no doubt contributed.
The immersion of frontline politics in a softer but somewhat unexciting soundbath by both Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer has helped, drawing an obvious contrast with Johnson. The Conservatives’ strife under Truss and subsequent failure to return even close to level-pegging with Labour in the polls has fuelled internal Tory debates about the events of last summer and the run-up to the next election.


And the fact is that we haven’t yet seen the end of the aftershocks of the various rows, controversies and scandals that emerged from the Johnson era Downing Street, so even though that administration is no more, it continues to commit news intermittently.


But all of those things only feed the speculation over a possible comeback because Johnson himself allows such speculation to rumble on.
In part, that’s because – as his career has demonstrated several times – it doesn’t hurt to keep options open. Implausible things can happen, he might reason, so why close off even outside chances prematurely? A tad cynical, perhaps, but he’s hardly alone in that.