Making sense of Boris
What to make of Boris’ carefully repeated line in the FT interview out tomorrow and the Evening Standard today that he misses parliament? The mayor wants to make it clear that he is still a contender and people shouldn’t read any loss of ambition into the fact that he won’t be running for parliament in the next election.
Although Boris said all ambition for public office would be spent if he got a second term as mayor no-one believed him. He even considered running for parliament in this session but quickly worked out that it would be a “lose/lose” situation. He could be pretty sure of getting into parliament in a carefully vacated safe seat by-election, but what then?
It would be interpreted as murderous intent against David Cameron and if David Cameron won in 2015 Boris would be offered junior minister for paperclips if he was lucky. If he stays his hand till after the election he avoids the “assassin” label.
He stands ready to parachute into a safe seat vacated by an ally soon after the 2015 election if David Cameron fails to stay in power and then is ready to run for the Tory leadership in opposition.
Boris had worried that Michael Gove might be an opponent but appears to be convinced by all those protestations the education secretary makes saying he doesn’t think the job’s his thing. Boris is privately dismissive to friends of the continuing chances of George Osborne becoming leader, though the chancellor’s fortunes have been reviving.
Boris tells friends it would be him versus Theresa May in a post 2015 defeat contest. Well, the future is rarely that predictable but the privately expressed thoughts of the mayor are quite revealing. All ambition spent? Never.