Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Boris Johnson’s friendship problem

Boris Johnson is hoping that his MPs have calmed down over the Christmas break and that this term will be slightly less turbulent than the autumn. There is not, though, much evidence that this will be the case. Worries about the cost of living, ongoing Covid problems and the unwinding of various Tory party rows will mean that Johnson needs to be on top form to tackle this spring. There is not yet much evidence of that, either.

Johnson is not the kind of man who makes new year’s resolutions to transform his character

There is a consensus among Tory MPs that the Downing Street operation needs to change. There seems to be little love lost for his chief of staff Dan Rosenfield, who backbenchers complain doesn’t understand the party – or indeed how ministerial egos work. Others point to a comms operation whose approach, in their view, led to the leaking of the incendiary video about the Downing Street Christmas party: if Johnson’s spokespeople had been honest from the start about the allegations when they were published in the Mirror, then the row wouldn’t have built to such an extent. Of course, Johnson played no small part in increasing that pressure by insisting at Prime Minister’s Questions that there hadn’t been any rule-breaking. And herein lies one of the biggest questions: will changing personnel really make much difference when the judgement of the Prime Minister himself is in question?

Johnson is not the kind of man who makes new year’s resolutions to transform his character. But he has, in the past, understood that he needs to work harder at his relationships within the Conservative party in order to get what he wants. When he returned to Parliament, for instance, he cut a lonely figure at first, struggling to make an impression in the Chamber or socially.

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