It is a leitmotif of this site that Boris Johnson should return to the Commons at the next election, either to become Secretary of State for B.I.S.C.U.I.T.S* (if the Conservatives are in Government after it) or to contest the leadership (if they are not). We keep writing that the whole business should be sorted by Party Conference in October, which otherwise risks being blown off course – again: remember the frenzy of the Mayor’s arrival at Birmingham in 2012, or his Lisbon referendum intervention in 2009. Almost half of Party members want him back on the green benches. He is back on top of our future leadership league table.
Under the headline, “Boris poised to announce return to Parliament,” today’s Daily Mail reports that the Mayor will “announce he will stand for Parliament at next year’s election”, and that “he accepts that he must make his intentions to return to national politics known well before the Conservative conference in October or risk becoming a distraction at the party’s last major event before the general election next May”. The paper’s sources are described as “friends of the London Mayor” who “say he will announce his decision by the summer, when they expect him to say he will stand for Parliament again next year”.
In other words, Boris is poised to take the advice of ConservativeHome, which always has his interests at heart. If the story is true, that is. It may be. It may not be. Who knows? I have no reason whatsoever to believe it came from any particular person, and don’t know who these friends are, but am unable on this great patriotic day to resist the headline above.
* Business, Industrial Strategy, Cities, Universities, Infrastructure, Transport and Skills.