Boris Johnson will likely get a baby bounce among voters – but they will expect him to do his job

Having a baby is great personal news for Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds, but voters will quickly re-focus on the issues the prime minister faces at work

Will the Boris baby lead to a Boris bounce in the voters’ eyes? It might do, even though some at Westminster saw the timing of the announcement of his engagement to Carrie Symonds as a cynical attempt to distract attention from the dramatic resignation of the Home Office’s top civil servant.

Although Boris Johnson has not had a good start to 2020, losing a chancellor and dealing with a meltdown under his close ally Priti Patel at the Home Office, the public does not seem too concerned. His personal ratings have risen since December’s general election, suggesting that some who had doubts about him are now more relaxed.

According to Ipsos Mori pollsters, 47 per cent of people are satisfied with the way Johnson is doing his job – an increase of 11 points since December (shortly before the election) while 44 per cent say they are dissatisfied (down 12 points), giving him a net satisfaction of plus 3. There has also been a rise in the proportion who think Johnson “has what it takes to be a good prime minister” – up from 38 per cent in July to 49 per cent.

His personal ratings are better than Theresa May’s after the 2017 election (34 per cent satisfied), and similar to David Cameron's post-2015 (49 per cent), but worse than Cameron’s after the 2010 election (57 per cent), Tony Blair’s after 2001 (51 per cent) and 1997 (72 per cent), John Major’s after 1992 (56 per cent) and Margaret Thatcher’s after 1987 (54 per cent).

Johnson aides, including Dominic Cummings, would point to his improved ratings as evidence that the “real world” views the prime minister rather differently to an out of touch Westminster commentariat. On the face of it, then, a bouncing baby might enhance Johnson’s appeal.

However, Johnson’s private life is rather more complicated than those of Blair and Cameron when they had children while occupying Downing Street, in 2000 and 2010 respectively.

Johnson, who had four children during his recently ended marriage to Marina Wheeler, declines to say how many children he has in total. So he is unlikely to be interviewed by the BBC’s Andrew Neil about his new family.

Photos in friendly newspapers will help, but only up to a point. Johnson is more popular among men than women, and did not do well among younger women at the election. Their reservations about him might not disappear after a photo of Johnson and Symonds holding their summer baby on the steps of No 10.

Most voters will judge Johnson on his performance as prime minister rather than his family life. Indeed, he will have to ensure he does not appear distracted by it. Probably his recent 12-day disappearance from the public radar, much of it spent in the grace-and-favour Chevening mansion in Kent while Chequers is being renovated, had something to do with the baby news.

But it gave a damaging impression that Johnson was rather slow off the mark in taking charge of the government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak. He will not chair his first meeting of the Cobra emergency committee until Monday, a month after the first confirmed case in the UK. There is the danger of Johnson replicating the “chair of the board” approach which served him well as London mayor. His refusal to visit areas hit by the floods is also a mistake.

Delegating to cabinet ministers is all very well, but at times of crisis, voters want to see the country’s leader at the wheel, not asleep at it – even if he does have a new baby keeping him awake at night.