Boris’s new No. 10 team can’t save him from himself

Boris Johnson’s new No. 10 hires have given him a chance to catch his breath, very briefly, from the turmoil of the past week. But it’s worth noting that the plot has always thickened as a result of something the Prime Minister himself has done, rather than the mistakes or otherwise of his team. 

Guto Harri, Andrew Griffith and Steve Barclay now have the unenviable and – many Conservative MPs think – impossible task of encouraging the party to feel more forgiving towards the Prime Minister whenever he next makes a mistake. They cannot, though, stop him from making mistakes, and this is why he is still in a great deal of trouble.

Munira Mirza’s departure showed that even people who have stuck by Johnson for many years are struggling to keep patience with him now. When I interviewed Rachel Wolf, who co-wrote the majority-winning 2019 manifesto with Mirza, on Times Radio yesterday, she underlined what many formerly pro-Boris MPs are also feeling.