BoJo gets his mojo back

The Tories had a good few days in Manchester. But one Tory had a particularly good week, Boris Johnson. A week ago, Boris looked becalmed. As we said in the Spectator, he was struggling to make the transition from being Mayor of London to being both the Mayor and an MP. But this week, he has delivered the best speech of his political life, shown new Tory MPs his talents, and renewed his relationship with Tory activists. It was telling that when Cameron paid tribute to Boris during the leader’s speech, the hall gave him a standing ovation.

Now, the tricky thing for Boris will be coming up with a follow up to this and he still has several months where he has to be in two places at once, City Hall and the Commons. But he finds himself in a far better position than he did a week ago. Though, I still suspect that given the challenge for Boris of being one of the two names sent by MPs to the members ballot, whether or not he becomes Tory leader will be determined by the position he ends up taking come the EU referendum.