Boris Johnson could thrive if he learns from his mistakes – but he’ll have to take note of Theresa May’s too

For someone who never disguised his ambition to become prime minister, Boris Johnson seems already to be making a terrible hash of it. True, his first few weeks defied the naysayers. Through August, there was a sense of organisation, application and purpose at No 10, that led some of his erstwhile critics to hazard that he might actually “deliver Brexit”. Then MPs returned from their summer recess, and the Johnson regime, it appeared, could not bear its first brush with democratic reality.

The result, as his many gleeful adversaries are now pointing out, is that in the course of just three days back at Westminster, Johnson has lost not just all House of Commons votes, but his majority, a slice of his parliamentary party, including some of its biggest beasts, and his brother, Jo Johnson, who resigned from the cabinet and as an MP, citing “unsolvable tension” between family loyalty and the national interest.

What has happened poses two separate questions. Is the prime minister’s plight really as bad as it looks? And why did it turn out like this?

Is it really as bad as it looks? I am not sure that it is. Or rather, I am not sure that what is being presented as the most damaging aspects, are actually the most damaging. Take his brother’s resignation. That may be the most poignant and personal development, but maybe Jo should have anticipated the potential conflicts before he accepted his brother’s fraternal invitation.

Then the lost votes. Johnson is relying on a chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, whose reputation is as something of a master strategist. Guile, feints, deception, backed up by a realistic threat of “hard power”, are supposed to feature in his playbook. If you know this, then much of what has taken place over the past week can be read in two ways – to Johnson’s advantage, and not.

The prorogation of parliament, for instance, looks dictatorial. But it is not unusual and has so far been found to be legal. It does not cover the crucial two weeks before 31 October, and for much of the time, parliament was not going to be sitting anyway, because of party conferences. Johnson has “stolen” less than a week. If MPs were so concerned about the national crisis, why did they not decide back in July to curtail their party conferences? MPs’ ability to get their skates on to pass a law blocking “no deal” rather proves that point: there’s nothing like a deadline to concentrate minds.

As for the lost votes – yes, they make the prime minister look weak. But they can also be seen as shoring up Johnson’s credibility with the hard Brexiteers by demonstrating the strength of the soft-Brexit/Remainer opposition. Out in the constituencies, they also bolster Johnson’s case for being seen as “the people’s” representative versus parliament in the event of a general election.

Johnson may give the impression that his priority is to be seen to stand up to Brussels – all that guff about Tory Remainers “chopping the legs out from under the UK”. But a more immediate purpose could be to reassure his own hard-Brexit MPs and Leave voters toying with defection to Nigel Farage that they can trust any “deal” he concludes with Brussels.

And it is still possible, just about, to see some of this coming right. A no-deal constraint forced by MPs might actually be welcome to Johnson as a prelude to the deal that – I still believe – he wants. Expelling “rebel” Tory MPs not only reinforces his authority early on, but creates vacancies for new MPs more amenable to his line. Similarly, an election whose timing looks forced rather than chosen could also play into his hands.

So I am not sure that Johnson will be too distressed by the lost votes. Or that his cause is greatly damaged. As a seasoned campaigner, he may well feel that he can win an election against a divided opposition, and that the losses can be turned into gains. Or he may simply prefer to go down, if he has to go down, fighting.

But how things look can be as important in politics as how things actually are. And while some of what has happened this week may be part of a devious game plan, much has also gone wrong. After all, Johnson would surely prefer to be riding a wave of popular support in the country, presiding over a united parliamentary party, and coasting towards a new “deal” with Brussels that he can get through the House of Commons, than heading a government with no majority and facing an election before 31 October.

How has this happened to a politician who won the leadership of his party by a landslide less than two months ago? One of the reasons may be that he has proved surprisingly bad at the things he should have been good at, and succumbed to dangers that he could have avoided, had he been less dismissive of his predecessor.

Johnson’s dismal performances at the dispatch box after reporting on the G7 summit and then at his first Prime Minister’s Questions are a case in point. His whole career, from Eton onwards, suggests that he should be a master orator and debater. What we have seen is a lot of bumbling and harrumphing, along with unanswered questions. Did he perhaps think that he could just “walk it”, adopting a Churchillian stance? Will he realise that, as prime minister for real, he still has something to learn – including lessons from Theresa May?

While May was undoubtedly flawed – she lacked charisma, imagination and persuasive power – character was not the only explanation for her failure. Circumstances played a big role, too. Yet Johnson seemed to believe that the failure was all hers, and that when the party had a new leader equal to the task, most of the difficulties would fade away.

They didn’t. Which is why May was fully entitled to the relaxed smiles she allowed herself this week, as she watched her successor from the back benches. Johnson was a leading member of her “awkward squad”. Now he had his own. Like her, he also had to deal with an unexpectedly united EU, an Ireland no longer under London’s thumb, and a generally Remain-inclined House of Commons. Like her, he started by sowing division, rather than wooing allies. What is more, his attempt to root out opponents on his own side has left wider bitterness that could rebound.

Preparing this article, I chanced upon a commentary by the author, David Boyle, who remarked upon parallels between Johnson and failed British military commanders, as identified by the psychologist, Norman Dixon, in the 1970s.

Dixon’s argument was that those responsible for great British defeats down the years had much in common: their errors stemmed not from stupidity, but from a series of flaws, starting with “arrogant underestimation of the enemy” and “the inability to learn from experience”.

It is not too late. Johnson may be able to turn an election campaign to his advantage, emerge with an overall majority of mainly like-minded MPs, and reach a swift deal with Brussels that he can get through parliament. Then again – unless he makes an effort to understand what has gone wrong and learn from his own and others’ experience – he may not.