Stars align to keep Boris Johnson safe as PM

Prime Minister Boris Johnson leaves 10 Downing Street for parliament on Monday. Picture: Getty Images

Boris Johnson will ride out ­“Partygate”. No matter how ­elegantly excoriating Labour leader Kier Starmer was in the British parliament, Boris is not going anywhere.

He may even lead the Conservatives to the next election as his Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, told Australians on her recent trip.

Excruciating as it is for his ­detractors, from British Labour to disgruntled Tory party backbenchers and across the media, no one has quite found the Kryptonite to do in SuperBoris.

What was striking during a 10- day visit to England in mid-January at the height of Partygate hysteria, was how far ahead the media had raced to write off the British Prime Minister. Even the columns of the Torygraph were full of “last straw” outrage. Less so this week.

In fact Britain is not within cooee of the next general election, which is scheduled for May 2024.

A genuine threat to the Prime Minister is the vote of no confidence that is triggered if 54 Conservative MPs send letters to the 1922 Committee that oversees a leadership challenge. How many have been received is a secret and letters can be withdrawn.

What is clear however, is that no one is in the wings desperate to take the reins. Margaret Thatcher had Michael Heseltine, Theresa May had Boris Johnson.

Of the two candidates most discussed, Truss confirmed her confidence in the Prime Minister, regardless of the contents of the Gray report. “I am of the view that he is doing a fantastic job” she told me in London.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak is ­impressive. Much was made of his limp support of the Prime Minister on January 17 and of a fallout over a rise in the national ­insurance levy. But this week, Sunak and Johnson have been one voice on the tax hike.

In any case, who would want to take over just as a cost-of-living crisis hits Britain and puts a bucket load of pressure on the government’s “levelling up” promise for the country?

By April, households will face a 50 per cent increase in energy bills, food inflation, higher interest rates and a tax increase. And all just ahead of local elections in May.

Johnson will no doubt point to a gutsy decision on January 5 to leave Britain open through the Omicron surge when cases hit more than 200,000 a day, saving jobs and businesses.

The few who could not see dying loved ones while No.10 ­frolicked are rightly inconsolable. But the assumptions around how much the average Brit cares about Partygate are bold.

The British public knows its leader is deeply flawed. Sue Gray’s finding of failures of leadership and judgment at No.10 is no surprise.

The police criminal investigation delays any findings on individual partygoers and it has allowed the Prime Minister to delay the full publishing of the Gray report.

In 2019 the Johnson government won a landslide majority of 80 seats with the highest popular vote since 1979. Driving voter support was Brexit, which ­allowed the Tories to smash the Red Wall of the north, replacing long standing Labour MPs with conservatives.

Much has been made of the anger at Partygate from these “rookie” Tories but again, consider the alternative. Johnson campaigned for Brexit with Geoff Boycott at his side, which helped deliver the Conservatives comfortable margins. Truss is a converted Remainer.

The threat of war in Ukraine also works in Johnson’s favour. The British public is well aware of how tense Russian relations have become since the poisonings: first of Alexander Litvinenko and then of the Skripals in Salisbury, which killed another woman. As foreign secretary in 2018, Johnson was outspoken in his early accusation of Russian involvement and he has not let up since.

As Partygate drags on, no one would be more frustrated at Johnson’s longevity than his former chief adviser Dominic Cummings, who has been serving up a series of vengeful cold dishes via the media.

There will be revelations in the upcoming police inquiry, which cut through to the Prime Minister. He will need to address them swiftly and most likely through scalps at No.10.

Just how he will handle his wife Carrie’s involvement in ­Partygate will be interesting. The former staffer is reported to have been instrumental in an alleged “The Winner Takes it All” Abba party at the Johnsons’ flat on ­November 13, 2020, to mark the resignation of Cummings.

Johnson wants the people to overlook his faults because he get the big calls right, and to date they have done exactly that.

One meme circulating on Monday had Johnson quipping: “It is with great regret I have to tell you our dog Dilyn ate the Sue Gray report before I had a chance to read it.”

Dilyn might as well have done so.