How long has Boris Johnson got?

One of those odd days with not much news, which meant the vacuum was filled with speculation about how the prime minister can prolong his time in office. So far, it is the four Bs: Plan B (dropping restrictions soonish); bash the BBC; boats; and NHS backlog.

Only the first of those seems remotely useful to Boris Johnson: his pitch to the 101 Tory MPs who defied the government whip over the coronavirus restrictions before Christmas is that any other prime minister could not be relied on to keep the country out of lockdown. Hence suggestions that the current restrictions might be lifted before the 26 January review date.

The voters like the BBC, even if they don’t much like paying for it; there is nothing the military can do about small boats crossing the Channel that Border Force cannot; and the NHS backlog is a two-year project that hasn’t started yet.

I was asked on live radio over the weekend when I thought Johnson would stand down and said the autumn, but really, nobody knows.

Quiz question: Boris Johnson is currently the 18th shortest serving prime minister, but who was the shortest serving prime minister who also won an election? Answer at the bottom of today’s email.

Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, confirmed in the Commons that the BBC licence fee will be frozen for two years, running into yet another clash with the speaker over the news being leaked over the weekend – in her case by her, tweeting about it
James Johnson, former No 10 pollster, reported how first-time and long-time Conservative voters have turned against the prime minister – for all the caveats about unrepresentative focus groups subject to loudmouth bias, this felt significant
Iain Martin commented: “Perhaps once or twice a decade get to see public sentiment shift in this dramatic, brutal way. A great thing in a democracy.” I agree: this is like the ERM crisis in 1992, Brown bottling the election in 2007 and May saying “nothing has changed” in 2017
First day of term at King’s College London for the “Blair Years” course. Anji Hunter, Tony Blair’s “alliance-maker” and star of the Blair-Brown TV documentary, came to talk to a new class of postgrad students. She was brilliant on the contrast between Blair and the current prime minister: “None of us ever remember having a drink in No 10 unless it was a formal party booked in the White Room.” I’ll write more about the class later
Heidi Allen, Tim Bale and I shall be talking about whether we get the MPs we deserve on Bright Blue’s YouTube channel tomorrow at 4pm

Rentoul’s reading list

Rupert Hawksley: Boris Johnson has done nothing wrong – his sister told us so
I wrote at the weekend about Boris Johnson’s election victory containing the seeds of his defeat
David Gauke says Tory members should have no say in who the next leader should be
David Davis, civil libertarian Tory, wrote a short Twitter thread in November explaining why offshore processing of asylum seekers would be wrong and offensive (thanks to Sunder Katwala)
Imogen Brighty-Potts says OCD should not be material for comedy

And finally

Remarkable story of a fairytale castle built in Woodstock, Connecticut, via Rebecca Makkai and Zillow, the US equivalent of Zoopla or Rightmove

Quiz answer: Bonar Law, who fought and won the election in November 1922, a month after becoming prime minister, but resigned (ill health) May 1923. (Thanks to Jocky Wulsin.)

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