Would a Boris-Rishi pact work?

There is generally a basic problem to be overcome whenever somebody suggests two competing political egos come together to campaign on a ‘joint ticket’ – one of them has to be the boss.

There is only one vacancy being fought over by Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak and it cannot be subject to a job share. It is not, after all, the political editorship of the Guardian at stake here, but prime minister of the United Kingdom.

It can be surmised that Sunak and Johnson will have had very different ideas about what a pact between them might look like when they met last night for extensive talks.

Sunak will likely have favoured himself occupying No. 10, with Johnson either supporting him from the backbenches or serving again as foreign secretary, with extra authority to shape the agenda on the war in Ukraine. ‘I’ll deal with the home front, you bestride the global stage, together we’ll be unbeatable.’

Johnson will surely have had a different outcome in mind: him back in Downing Street and Sunak as deputy PM with an enhanced role implementing the domestic agenda at a time when, in the immortal words of Labour former chief secretary to the Treasury Liam Byrne, ‘there is no money’.

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In the end, the details of such arrangements are little more than window dressing.