Does Boris really have 100 MPs?

Does Boris have the numbers? That’s the question all Westminster is asking today. There’s been much excitement about an anonymous briefing that seems to have gone out to half the parliamentary press gallery. BBC Pol Ed Chris Mason quotes a source close to Boris Johnson as claiming that he has ‘now has more than 100 backers and so could be on the ballot if he chooses to be’.

The interesting word there is ‘could’. According to Coffee House’s own list here Johnson has 54 public backers as of 3:30 p.m today, meaning there are 46 undeclared backers still out there. Is that really plausible? There may be MPs keeping their powder dry for all sorts of reasons – party whips for instance have to remain neutral. But there seems a whiff of Boris boosterism about the figures, given the gulf between the private and public numbers is much greater than the respective claims of the Sunak and Mordaunt camps.

Perhaps Mr S is a cynic but as a former journalist himself, Johnson will only be too aware of the importance of print deadlines in all of this. Given the role that the Daily Mail played in getting Liz Truss over the line, the endorsement of its sister paper the Mail on Sunday and other weekly papers could be important in making up the minds of the 150 or so undeclared MPs tomorrow.

Steerpike looks forward to finding out if there is a late Boris surge – or whether he chooses, as Charles Moore suggests, to sit this one out.