The Australians trying to save ‘mortally wounded’ Boris Johnson

The day before New Year’s Eve two men, both in their mid-30s, were photographed showing ID to police officers stationed at the back gate of Number 10 Downing Street. Boris Johnson had been holidaying at Chequers, the British Prime Minister’s country retreat, but a seemingly never-ending series of revelations about boozy, lockdown-breaching parties had forced his return to the capital for a crisis meeting.

At the time the photo went relatively unnoticed, buried in the Daily Mirror tabloid. A month later and with hindsight, the presence of the two men – Australian electoral strategists Isaac Levido and his numbers man Michael Brooks – shows just how serious is the scandal that now threatens Johnson and his Conservative government.

Under fire: Prime Minister Boris Johnson.Credit: Getty

Nicknamed “the sorcerer’s apprentice” in the British media, Levido – who cut his teeth with the British Conservatives working with mentor and Australian political strategist Lynton Crosby – was one of a core trio of strategists credited with devising the slogan, “Stay Home. Protect the NHS. Save Lives”. Placed on the PM’s TV lectern, it was seen by millions of Brits every night as Johnson and his chief medical and scientific officers updated the nation on the pandemic.

On December 30, however, he’d been brought in to brief the PM on a new round of internal polling. The picture was not pretty: the scandals, from expensive wallpapers to boozy parties, had done measurable damage to the party and to Johnson himself.

A month later (despite reports of his return), even Crosby, never one to back away from a down and dirty political fight, made it clear he has no appetite for returning to Number 10. “I am not going to Number 10 or working in that way,” he told political author Peter Oborne this week.

If the scenario looked bad when Levido briefed his boss on the polls just before new year, what has emerged since beggars belief.

Prominent Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood has submitted a letter of no-confidence in Prime Minister Boris Johnson to the 1922 Committee.Credit: Getty

Late on Thursday his head of policy, Munira Mirza, at his side for 14 years since he was mayor, quit Number 10 over his “scurrilous, inappropriate and partisan jibe” implying that Labour leader Keir Starmer, while running the Crown Prosecution Service, had failed to prosecute serial paedophile Jimmy Savile.

His director of communications, Jack Doyle, announced his departure soon after and one MP described Johnson as a “pound-shop Trump”. Even the most experienced political editors struggled to keep the look of astonishment from their faces as they delivered live-to-air reports from Westminster.

Australian electoral strategist Isaac Levido.Credit:

To date, the much-heralded report by senior civil servant Sue Gray has confirmed that 16 “events” were held in Downing Street between May 2020 and April 2021 while the rest of the nation was in lockdown.

The blame, the report said, could be sheeted home to “failures of leadership and judgment” fuelled by a culture of “excessive workplace drinking”. The steely Gray based her findings on interviews with more than 70 individuals and scrutiny of thousands of emails, WhatsApp and text messages, although she made clear that she had been stymied in her comments due to the police investigation now under way.

A sitting Prime Minister under police investigation? In itself, this is an extraordinary situation, one which historians suggest has not occurred in Britain before, although 14 MPs have found themselves under police investigation between 1880 and the present day. A few ended up in jail, but all resigned or were forced out, their political careers in tatters.

Less than 24 hours after responding to the excoriating report in Parliament, however, Johnson turned his back on his domestic woes and flew to Kyiv to show support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the face of a threatened Russian invasion. It did not go unnoticed in Europe that while French President Emmanuel Macron has had regular telephone contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin, “partygate” forced Johnson to postpone his call with the Russian leader.

Until this week, “Waiting for Gray” has been the mantra for Johnson’s biggest critics within the party, a play on Samuel Beckett’s absurdist masterpiece Waiting for Godot. Tory MPs can trigger a leadership contest if 54 letters of no confidence are sent to the backbench group known as the 1922 Committee. So far, 12 Tory MPs - including an ex-minister, Tobias Ellwood - have joined the nine who have publicly admitted to submitting their letters. A further 17 are reported to have done so secretly, although only the 1922 Committee’s chairman knows the real numbers.

While the threshold has not been reached, it is clear most backbenchers agree Johnson is in a very precarious position, while the mood among those who remain undecided, according to the BBC’s Iain Watson, is “stable but sullen”.

The political reality is that by any measure, Johnson should be mortally wounded. And yet MPs need to be convinced of an electable alternative capable of beating Starmer. Polling suggests the Labour leader has taken an 18-point lead in the “most capable PM” stakes with the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, consolidating as the public’s preferred Tory alternative. And yet 63 per cent of Conservative voters still believe “Johnson has what it takes” compared with 51 per cent for his Chancellor.

Levido is said to have insisted to skittish Tory donors this week that there’s time to regain ground and “partygate” is no more than a “sophomore slump”, an American expression for students who thrive in their first year but flop in their second. With no timetable yet for the police report, conflict on the Ukraine/Russian border and an election not due until May 2024, time seemed key to Johnson’s survival.

But the shock resignation of Mirza, a woman who has stayed longer by Johnson’s side than most of his wives, coupled with Sunak’s repeated refusal to rule out a leadership bid overnight, have unleashed the strongest rumours yet that the firing squad is assembling and a coup is finally under way.

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