Are we seeing a new Boris Johnson? Tory MPs seem to think so

A slow but smooth return to something close to normal by the summer, coupled with the successful vaccination programme, is what the prime minister needs, writes Andrew Grice

Johnson’s restraint has impressed Tory MPs in recent days (Getty)

Have we got a new Boris? Some Conservative MPs and Boris Johnson allies are saying that – in private, at least – after some revealing decisions in the past week.

They hailed the government’s remarkably restrained reaction to the EU’s incendiary threat to halt vaccine exports from Ireland to Northern Ireland. They also pointed to a last-minute change which saw a Brexiteer political adviser, David Frost, lose his next job as national security adviser to a civil servant.

At Westminster, it is being called the “non-Dom era” – a reference to the absence from Downing Street of Dominic Cummings, the turbulent adviser who left last November.