Andy Maciver: He is in the mire again but will Boris Johnson be here in a year? Well, probably yes

Andy Maciver is director of Message Matters and former head of communications for the Scottish Conservatives.

Just over two years ago, Boris Johnson did something his opponents, his colleagues, and media commentators thought he could not, and won a landslide victory in the General Election.

By ripping through Labour’s heartlands in the north of England – the so-called Red Wall – he gave his party by far its largest majority since the days of Margaret Thatcher, something of which his predecessors Theresa May, David Cameron and John Major dislike being reminded.

Shortly thereafter, he delivered a Brexit deal that finalised the UK’s removal from the European Union.

It may not have been a particularly good one, and it may now be in the process of unravelling, but it was a deal nonetheless which, again, his opponents, his colleagues and media commentators, as well as those on the other side of the negotiating table, thought that he could not achieve.

Not long after that, in the grip of the coronavirus pandemic, he delivered the world’s fastest vaccine rollout programme, which saw his party stretching its opinion poll lead over Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour to 15%.

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None of these achievements should have surprised either those colleagues, those opponents or those media commentators.

We don’t have to like the man, or his party, or his government, but we do have to acknowledge that Mr Johnson has a long history of obliterating low expectations.

Becoming Tory leader was thought to be utterly beyond him after his spectacular exit from the previous contest, in which Mrs May was crowned.

Winning the Brexit referendum, and long before that twice winning the Mayoralty in London, had also been considered impossible tasks.

All of this serves as proof, I would suggest, that the bold statements we have seen in recent weeks from Mr Johnson’s colleagues, opponents and media commentators that he is finished, a lame duck, a busted flush, are premature and lacking in even the most basic historical evidence.

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There is no question that he is having a torrid time, particularly as we close out the year.

The infamous CBI speech in which he lost his way and started talking about Peppa Pig.

The question marks over the renovation of his flat. The furore over MPs’ second jobs, and the dramatic loss of an extremely safe seat in the by-election which it triggered.

And, of course, the continued drip-feed of allegations about multiple breaches of Covid regulations last Christmas at the heart of government.

The last of those is by far the most serious. Voters all around the country believed, in 2019, that Mr Johnson understood them in a way that Labour did not. This aristocratic southerner persuaded them to tick the Tory box, often for the first time.

Those voters may consider the bungled speeches and by-election losses to be part and parcel of the “Boris show”, but will they find Covid rule breaches a step too far?

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A step away from “he’s one of us” and towards “one rule for him and another for us”?

The big question is: will he be prime minister this time next year? This is volatile territory, but forced to pin my colours to the mast, I would say yes, he will.

Ultimately, his fate is in the hands of his MPs. Their relationship is transactional – they will back him if he looks like a winner, and sack him if he looks like a loser.

And, when the dust settles in the new year, my gut tells me that they’ll give this proven winner one last chance to guide them to one last victory.