Ross Clark Ross Clark

Boris Johnson is making the same mistake as Theresa May

The concept of Boris Johnson avoiding publicity takes some getting used to. Normally, the man seeks out TV studios like apes seek out trees – they are a natural habitat from which it would be cruel to separate him. Yet Boris has suddenly gone missing, to the point Boris-watchers might soon start to worry about possible extinction. He is refusing all broadcast interviews, and has limited his appearance in the Conservative leadership election campaign so far to a single newspaper interview with the Sunday Times.

There is, of course, some logic behind his sudden shyness. When Boris meets a microphone there is always a possibility – or a probability – of a gaffe which will go on to dominate the news agenda for days afterwards. That, indeed, might not be helpful when it comes to persuading his fellow MPs to put him on the list of two candidates that will be put forward to Conservative members. But I would say there is a bigger risk on the other side: that his refusal to appear in public will cost him by making him look ‘frit’, as Mrs Thatcher would have put it.

Boris seems to have learned nothing from Theresa May’s 2017 election disaster. She tried to use exactly the same strategy: keeping out of TV debates in the belief that while they offered her little advantage, they provided an opportunity for a slip-up. Why take risks when you are way ahead in the polls? But as May found out to her cost, a no-show in a TV debate can be even more costly than a gaffe. People start to see you as aloof, as treating the electorate with contempt. There was no greater turning point in the 2017 campaign than when May refused to turn up to a debate and sent Amber Rudd instead – even though Rudd had just lost her father.

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