Boris Johnson’s trip to India is a balm for his very bruised ego

Miles from the airport to his luxury hotel, the prime minister’s blond-maned visage loomed down from hundreds of billboards, writes Andrew Woodcock

Gujarati capital Ahmedabad literally rolled out the red carpet for the prime minister (PA)

If Boris Johnson is feeling a little unloved back home right now, his arrival in India may have acted as the tonic that he needed after a gruelling few weeks in Westminster.

Gujarati capital Ahmedabad literally rolled out the red carpet for the prime minister in a way that can only have acted as a balm for his ego after the humiliation of his repeated apologies for Partygate in the Commons.

Mr Johnson was greeted off the plane by a delegation led by chief minister Bhupesh Patel at the head of a delegation laden down with so many bouquets of red roses that it took three men to cart them all away afterwards.

Miles from the airport to his luxury hotel, the prime minister’s blond-maned visage loomed down from hundreds of billboards, 20 or 30 feet high and bearing the greeting “Welcome to Gurajat”.

Everywhere, the streets were lined with sari-clad troupes of dancers, drummers and pipers, along with one group performing synchronised displays with brightly-coloured parasols – highly desirable accessories in heat topping 40C.

Mr Johnson was draped in a floral garland as he visited Mahatma Gandhi’s house and tried his hand at weaving – “It’s a bit of an art, this spinning”, he told his guests, in what was probably not a wry reflection on the challenges of political media management.

Everywhere he went, people were pleased to see him. And even better, no one – apart from the pesky hacks in his media entourage – wanted to talk to him about Sue Gray or parties or fixed penalty notices or the threat to his political lifespan.

There comes a time in many politicians’ careers when they find themselves more welcome overseas than at home. Abroad, no one knows about the grubby details of the scandals which obsess folk back home. Abroad, you are a world figure asked only to opine on weighty matters like wars and trade deals and the future of the planet.

Margaret Thatcher remained a hero in eastern Europe as the Iron Lady who stood up to the communists, even while she was being brought down by riots and betrayal in London. Tony Blair was having children named after him in Kosovo and Albania just as the fallout from the Iraq War was tarnishing his name at home.

For Boris Johnson, that moment may be coming more quickly than for his predecessors. After less than three years in office, he finds himself mired in controversies, with backbenchers from his own party demanding his head and question marks over whether he has become an electoral liability.

But in Ahmedabad, the regional edition of the Times of India proudly listed him as one in a list of global leaders who have visited the city, alongside Xi Jinping, Justin Trudeau and Donald Trump.

In Ahmedabad, he is served with what local papers described as a “specially curated breakfast menu” featuring Gurajati delicacies like fafda, khaman, methi gota and patra.

And in India, he gets to announce a billion pounds of commercial deals which Downing Street say will create 11,000 jobs across the UK. No wonder he brushed off all questions from the travelling press team about his travails back home with a grumpy mantra that he was “focusing on the things that matter to voters” – conveniently forgetting that polls suggest that Partygate matters very much to the voters.

And no wonder if we increasingly find that, with Covid out of the way, our prime minister devotes ever more time to trips abroad, where people really appreciate him.

Yours,

Andrew Woodcock

Political Editor