As Boris Johnson falters, Rishi Sunak keeps his eye on the prize

The prime minister has hit turbulence in public opinion, writes John Rentoul, and the chancellor is being terribly supportive

Sunak remains popular with Tory MPs and party members (HM Treasury)

There are two main reasons ministers write letters to each other. One is that they want to persuade their colleague by setting out their argument. The other is that they want the letter to appear on the front page of The Sunday Times to advertise their view to their party and the nation.

Given that Boris Johnson agrees with Rishi Sunak that travel ought to be opened up, and given that the chancellor’s letter to the prime minister urging him to open up travel did indeed appear on the front page of The Sunday Times at the weekend, all the evidence is pointing towards motive two in this case.

The chancellor also gave an interview to LinkedIn News yesterday in which he repeated the prime minister’s known views about how valuable it is for “young people in particular” to be at work in an office. “Go back to the office if you want to get on” is not quite as snappy as “Eat out to help out”, but we get the message.

For close observers of the history of relations between Nos 10 and 11 Downing Street, this is another intriguing example of learning the lessons of the Blair-Brown relationship. The Blairite analysis is that Gordon Brown could have become prime minister sooner if he had been more supportive of his neighbour. George Osborne took from that that he and David Cameron should remain best mates, which didn’t work out for him, but it might work for Sunak, who starts with the advantage of being popular.

Not only is Sunak popular in the country – partly because people are grateful for his furlough scheme – but he is popular among the Conservative MPs and party members who will choose the next leader. It is no coincidence that opening up travel and getting people back to the office are things that a lot of Tory MPs care about. And the contrast between Sunak and Johnson among party members was dramatised by the Conservative Home poll, in which Johnson’s net satisfaction rating crashed from plus 39 per cent to 3 per cent, while Sunak’s is at plus 74 per cent.

The chancellor also has a commanding lead when Tory members are asked who should be the next leader of the party after Johnson. Sunak comes top on 31 per cent, ahead of Liz Truss, the international trade secretary, on 12 per cent, and Penny Mordaunt, the paymaster general, on 11 per cent. Sunak’s closest rivals are interesting: it would seem that members have forgiven Truss’s Remainer past as she signs post-Brexit rollover trade deals, while Mordaunt is admired for her occasional partisan outings at the despatch box.

Previous leadership contenders Dominic Raab, Sajid Javid and Michael Gove are well down the rankings. Gove commented at the weekend: “I’ve had two goes and got bronze both times. I don’t think I’ll get the gold medal and I have to recognise that.” He has changed his mind about that before, but it does seem that, as he said, “there is a crop of younger people coming up” who stand a better chance next time.

The faltering of the prime minister’s popularity may have been exaggerated by that Con Home poll. But it did feel as if it was a moment when the political world turned a little further away from the pre-Johnson past towards the post-Johnson future. It was notable that the prime minister suffered for his hastily abandoned attempt two weeks ago to avoid 10 days’ isolation, while Sunak, who was also going to use the pilot scheme get-out, seems to have got away with it.

That suggests the “isolation dodge” triggered a wider feeling that Johnson was handling the unwinding of coronavirus restrictions badly, and perhaps reflected the waning of the vaccine boost that has sustained his popularity all year.

We cannot yet hear the “dreadful noise, absolutely like thunder”, as the courtiers desert the dying king to pay homage to the heir, as Madame Campan described the transfer of power from Louis XV to Louis XVI. But one or two tiptoeing steps can be heard in the corridors of power. Lynton Crosby, the Australian adviser who ran Johnson’s first London mayoral campaign and Cameron’s 2015 election, was in Downing Street for a “catch-up” with Sunak last week. Stephen Glover, a founder of The Independent who is now a Daily Mail columnist, declared in the pages of the country’s biggest-selling newspaper today: “Thank God for Rishi Sunak.”

I suspect we are all getting ahead of ourselves. Johnson has shown remarkable resilience before. There may be several more cycles of popularity and unpopularity for him ahead. His recent setback returns him to merely a good position for a prime minister leading a mid-term government. His party is still ahead of the opposition in the opinion polls, and he is still preferred to Keir Starmer as prime minister.

Indeed, Johnson is preferred to Sunak as prime minister for the moment – by 37 per cent to 30 per cent, according to Redfield and Wilton. But when the moment comes for the Conservative Party to look for a new leader, one candidate is a long way ahead.