Boris’s backers have a lot to answer for

In today’s Times, a “long-standing friend” of Boris Johnson complains that “there’s a tendency to infantilise Boris”. Putting the man who still looks likely to be the next leader of the Conservative and Unionist party and prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland under a form of, well, house-arrest must have seemed like a good idea at the time. After all, the race is his to lose and can only be lost by him. “Clearly”, the chum adds, “there was a need to protect him but it went too far”. 

This seems revealing. A number of questions arise. First, *why* do people feel inclined to “infantilise” Johnson? Secondly, *why* was there “clearly” a need to “protect” the candidate?

In other, better, circumstances you might like to think there’d be no need for such measures because the favourite to be the next prime minister would not be treated as a child by his friends and supporters and might not require this kind of protection from scrutiny and, indeed, himself.