Boris Johnson has dramatically made a double retreat from all-out verbal war with Rishi Sunak over the damning report which concluded he lied to MPs over partygate.
First, he has ordered his closest allies in the Commons not to vote against the privileges committee report that proposed a 90-day suspension if he had still been an MP.
In a major U-turn, the former prime minister has told his supporters “it’s time to come together and move on” and “turn down the temperature and calm down”.
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Secondly, Mr Johnson appears to have steered clear of political controversy in his new Daily Mail column by writing – bizarrely – about his battle to lose weight and trying a slimming “wonder drug”.
With MPs braced for another blistering attack on the privileges committee, Mr Johnson has chosen instead to write about using injections to stifle his cravings for cheddar and chorizo.
Mr Johnson does, however, write that when middle-aged MPs lose weight they may be about or launch a leadership bid, a bid close allies have told Sky News he may launch after the next election.
His decision to “call off the dogs” – as MPs are calling it – and avoid a bruising confrontation in a Commons debate on Monday was revealed to Sky News by his close ally Sir James Duddridge MP.
“Boris’s view has changed,” said Sir James. “I spoke to him and he said the vote is not going to make any difference and it’s time to come together and move on.
“We want to turn down the temperature and calm down. I don’t think there’s going to be a vote. Very few people are going to turn up because it’s only a one-line whip.”
But another close ally told Sky News: “Don’t rule out Boris going for leader of the Opposition after the next election. He’s going to go submarine for now. For now, he wants to regain the reputation as the columnist everybody loves.”
Mr Johnson’s Daily Mail column, which the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments complained it was not told about until 30 minutes before the paper announced it, in a “clear breach” of the ministerial code, is rumoured to be worth a big six-figure sum.
The column began: “I first thought that something was up when I saw that a certain member of the cabinet had miraculously changed his appearance. He had acquired a new jawline. His neck emerged without effort from his collar.
“When he rose from his chair at the cabinet table, that chair no longer tried to cling longingly about his hips. I got it! He had lost weight, stones and stones of belly…”
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Though the ex-prime minister did not name the cabinet minister, it is understood to be Nadhim Zahawi, who was education secretary and then briefly became chancellor under Mr Johnson after Mr Sunak resigned.
But in what could have been a jibe at the slender Mr Sunak, who the ex-prime minister’s allies accuse of stabbing Mr Johnson in the back when he quit, he said he thought of Julius Caesar and wrote: “Let me have men about me that are fat,’ said the Roman dictator, shortly before his assassination. ‘Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look’.”
Mr Johnson added: “If an otherwise healthy middle-aged man displays sudden weight loss, I reasoned, there are only two possible explanations. Either he has fallen hopelessly in love, or else he is about to mount a Tory leadership bid.
“Then one of those colleagues came up and whispered the truth – that there was an entirely separate explanation. He had access, he said, to a wonder drug. ‘It stops you wanting to eat,’ he said.
The second colleague is understood to be Mr Johnson’s close ally and former Cabinet Office fixer ally Nigel Adams, who he attempted to send to the House of Lords and who, like the former prime minister, has resigned as an MP, forcing a by-election in his Selby and Ainsty constituency.
Mr Johnson wrote: “I consulted the doctor, and he told me that I was an ideal candidate for these appetite-suppressing drugs.
“It’s a cinch, said the doctor. All you need to do is inject a tiny dose of clear Ozempic fluid into your abdomen, once a week, and hey presto – no more raiding the fridge at 11.30pm for the cheddar and chorizo washed down with half a bottle of wine.
“He wrote out the prescription, I zoomed to the chemist’s; and though I was frankly a bit taken aback by the cost, what the hell, I said to myself, think of the benefits to health.
“So for weeks I jabbed my stomach, and for weeks it worked. I must have been losing four or five pounds a week – maybe more – when all at once it started to go wrong.
“I don’t know why, exactly. Maybe it was something to do with constantly flying around the world, and changing time zones, but I started to dread the injections, because they were making me feel ill.”
And perhaps revealing too much information, he added: “One minute I would be fine, and the next minute I would be talking to Ralph on the big white phone; and I am afraid that I decided that I couldn’t go on.
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“For now I am back to exercise and willpower, but I look at my colleagues – leaner but not hungrier – and I hope that if science can do it for them, maybe one day it can help me, and everyone else.”
Mr Johnson’s column will reinforce the view of many Conservative MPs that he aims to return to the Commons at the next election – and indeed mount a new leadership bid, whether he is leaner and fitter or not.