Boris Johnson is desperate for Joe Biden to beat Donald Trump – and it’s clear why

A defeat for the current president could liberate the prime minister to forge a more popular special relationship with the US, writes John Rentoul

Boris Johnson would like to see Donald Trump’s White House tenure end at one term (Reuters)

The prime minister suffers from “private neuralgia” about being associated with Donald Trump, according to Tim Shipman, the author who has chronicled Boris Johnson’s victory in the EU referendum and his rise to No 10.

Part of the reason for this aversion is obvious: Trump is exceptionally unpopular with the British public. Johnson finds himself in a similar bind to Tony Blair, when Al Gore failed to win the few hundred votes he needed in Florida to avoid the election being sent to the US Supreme Court.

For Blair, the US-UK partnership was an “article of faith”, to be maintained regardless of personalities, but for his party and much of British public opinion it was as much an article of faith that George W Bush was a dangerous simpleton with whom the British government should have as little to do as possible.