Boris Johnson believes changes within Downing Street will save him – but is he right?

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes, sang David Bowie, and now that is Boris Johnson’s tune as he tries to convince Tory MPs to pull back from kicking him out of No 10.

With the Met police closing in over Partygate – and the letters demanding a no-confidence vote piling up – the prime minister is pinning his hopes on a relaunch of his chaotic No 10 operation.

Guto Harri, his spin chief from his Mayor of London days, is back at his side, the Cabinet Office minister Stephen Barclay is the new chief of staff and Andrew Griffith, a Tory backbencher, is now head of policy.

Mr Johnson is portraying the dramatic overhaul as part of a masterplan that will deliver good government – but, unfortunately for him, that is clearly nonsense.

First, he was forced to bring it forward after the devastating blow of losing his trusted policy chief, Munira Mirza, who quit in disgust at his smear of Keir Starmer over Jimmy Savile’s crimes.

One danger now is that there are no sacrificial heads left to roll if Sue Gray’s delayed report into the lockdown-busting No 10 parties is as damning as most expect.

Just as importantly, the changes themselves have left many Tory MPs scratching their head and fearing they demonstrate Mr Johnson’s weakness, not any lingering strength.

Take the appointment of Mr Griffith – which replaces Ms Mirza, a state schooler from Oldham deemed to have the pulse of vital Red Wall voters, with a rich former banker boasting a safe seat in Sussex.

Worse, the appointment of Mr Barclay has the smack of panic and an inability to find a powerful outside figure willing to climb onboard what increasingly looks like Mr Johnson’s sinking ship.

How on earth can someone running a major department, the Cabinet Office, also be at the prime minister’s side as his key aide – an all-consuming job by itself?

But such questions are probably a distraction from the biggest problem, the suspicion that not even the world’s greatest strategists could rescue a prime minister beyond saving.

Ms Mirza’s resignation underlined how Mr Johnson will not take advice even from his closest aides – as he favours the chaos theory of leadership he set out to Dominic Cummings when Covid struck.

They apparently pleaded with him not to adopt the lie of far-right groups – that the Labour leader, while head of the Crown Prosecution Service failed to prosecute Savile – but he did it anyway.

No political leader changes spots once in power. All the evidence is that Mr Johnson is incapable of disciplined leadership, loves breaking the rules, is serially dishonest and that no-one cannot alter that.

Any Tory MPs crossing their fingers that the No 10 changes will work would do well to remember Bowie’s later musings in that great song.

“But I’ve never caught a glimpse, how the others must see the faker. Ch-ch-changes. There’s gonna have to be a different man.”