As MPs plot to bring him back, Boris Johnson channels his inner Winston Churchill and takes up golf

• Friends of ex-PM say he is a ‘man transformed’, freed from the pressures of No 10
• Mr Johnson spending his days painting, reading, writing, playing tennis and golf
• Political hero Winston Churchill also spent time golfing during ‘wilderness years’
• Meanwhile, ‘Red Wall’ MPs discussing Mr Johnson returning to No 10 next spring

Boris Johnson has taken up golf as he adjusts to life after Downing Street – as Tory MPs plot behind his back to parachute him back into Downing Street if Labour maintains its lead in the opinion polls.

The former Prime Minister is, according to friends, a ‘man transformed’ now that he is free of the pressures of No 10.

‘The difference in him is palpable,’ says one. ‘He is painting, reading, writing, playing tennis and even having a try at golf. He looks better – getting plenty of fresh air – and is back to his old self.’

Mr Johnson’s political hero Winston Churchill also spent his ‘wilderness years’ – between losing his Cabinet position in 1929 and joining the War Cabinet ten years later – painting, writing and occasionally playing golf.

With opinion polls indicating the Conservatives could be heading for a wipeout for the party at the next Election, Mr Johnson’s fellow backbenchers are not as sanguine as him about the situation.

MPs in the ‘Red Wall’ seats won by the Mr Johnson-led Tories in the 2019 election are discussing ripping up party rules to return him to No 10 in the spring if the party remains more than 20 points behind Labour.

Boris Johnson has taken up golf as he adjusts to life after Downing Street. Pictured: playing in his Hillingdon constituency

At that point, they calculate, the damage caused by new PM Liz Truss remaining in the post would outweigh that caused by toppling another prime minister.

One Tory MP first elected in 2019 told The Mail on Sunday: ‘It’s the 20-point lead question. If we are continually that far behind Labour by March it will have to be Boris Johnson. He will be the big bazooka we will need and that’s what most of the Red Wall thinks.’

Others have even talked about ‘getting the band back together’ –having Rishi Sunak back as Mr Johnson’s Chancellor – despite Mr Sunak’s role in helping to bring him down.

However, other MPs acknowledge that any hopes of a Johnson come-back may depend on the outcome of the controversial Commons’ Privileges Committee ‘partygate’ inquiry into whether he lied to MPs over lockdown parties at No 10. Leading allies of the ex-PM have denounced the probe as a ‘witch hunt’. One MP said: ‘Many of us are nostalgic. Everybody was quite happy with the Boris-Rishi dynamic.’

Mr Sunak’s allies say that any question of a fresh leadership contest is ‘hypothetical’.

Mr Johnson’s friends are at pains to point out that he is enjoying life too much to think about what he would do if he was asked to return.

Mr Johnson’s political hero Winston Churchill also spent his ‘wilderness years’ – between losing his Cabinet position in 1929 and joining the War Cabinet ten years later – painting, writing and occasionally playing golf. Pictured enjoying a round in 1913

‘It’s unclear how he would react’, said one. But it would be an extraordinary twist for a party that ousted him only three months ago.

One of the MPs said: ‘If we’re still behind but by less than 20 points, another contender could be considered. But anything above and it’s got to be Boris.’ 

Churchill’s favourite sport was polo, but he played golf in his youth.

After entering Parliament for the Conservatives in 1901 he played at Walton Heath course in Surrey with his Liberal colleagues Herbert Asquith and David Lloyd George, whose party he joined in 1904.

He described golf as ‘a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an ever smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose’. 

Churchill’s son Randolph said his father ‘had little aptitude for golf’, using a swing in which ‘he fails to keep his head down and foozles his drive’.

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