Blue Peter Boris put on the canvas by heavyweight Hunt

Boris Johnson has put in a series of disastrous media performances. Meanwhile Jeremy Hunt, Johnson’s rival contender for the leadership, has been outperforming all expectations.

Boris’s poor media appearances came off the back of a weekend of complete farce – involving the police, loud domestics with his girlfriend Carrie Symonds, an all-too-convenient picture of Symonds and Johnson on some kind of blissful countryside retreat, and conspiracies about the authenticity of the whole thing. By anyone standards – even those often immune to bad press, like Johnson – it was a mess.

Then, on Monday, Johnson gave his longest and most detailed interview since the race began to the BBC’s Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg. In it, he presented what was claimed to be his Brexit strategy, while reasserting his unwavering commitment to leaving the EU on 31st October.

On the latter point, Boris had been prevaricating. He set out the parameters of the Brexit debate at the very beginning of the contest, saying he would ensure the UK leaves the EU “deal or no deal” on 31st October, but since then he softened that commitment to the statement that leaving the EU by then would be “eminently feasible” – a far cry from his original promise.

So, yesterday he offered an “absolute guarantee” that he would take the UK out of the EU by Halloween. He struggled to explain how. He muddled his way through vague and at times unworkable policy – involving some kind of standoff over the backstop with the EU, and a possible indefinite transition period. Britain will dump May’s deal and then revive the parts of it that suit Britain and get the EU to back down on the rest, apparently.

Then this morning on LBC Johnson ran into further difficulty over his private life. Questions have been raised about the authenticity of that infamous countryside, domestic bliss, nothing-to-see-here snap of him and Symonds. Sceptics say Boris’s hair looks too long for the picture to have been taken this weekend, so the picture must have been planted. If that’s just conspiracy, it’s an easy one to dispel. But, Boris refused to answer a question on when the picture was taken, shrouding the whole saga in even more suspicion.

And then onto the next disaster. Boris spoke to Ross Kempsell of TalkRadio. Johnson again bumbled through an ill-devised Brexit strategy, claiming “positive energy” was needed to see Brexit over the line. He looked more like a man hoping for a miracle rather than one with a plan. And when asked what he likes to do in his free time he disclosed that he liked to make model buses. Really?

It’s an easy question to lie about – reading, walking, cooking. All perfectly legitimate answers. But in a bid to work the eccentric charm, that usually comes naturally to him, he gave a bizarre answer that has seen him subjected to endless online derision.

To top it all off, he’s refused to participate in a debate with Jeremy Hunt on Sky this evening. Hunt hasn’t found it hard to capitalise on this – tweeting today “tonight I was meant to be debating Boris Johnson on Sky, answering questions about our plans for Britain. Sadly, Boris has pulled out – which I don’t believe is fair on you, the public. So from 8pm I will be answering as many of your questions as poss – tweet me using #BoJoNoShow.”

It’s a tricky position for Boris’s handlers. For the first stage of the campaign, he was kept in hiding. The team were worried about him landing himself with a classic Boris gaffe. And judging by the past few days, they were right to be so risk-averse. But, by keeping him out of the public eye he welcomes criticism that he’s an avoider and unaccountable. There’s no easy solution to the dilemma, and the whole thing is made worse by Hunt outperforming expectations

There was talk of the Johnson camp using shadowy tactics in the MP’s voting round – that Boris’s unofficial chief whip and official chief swot Gavin Williamson was lending votes to the Hunt camp in a bid to see him on the final membership ballot. But has it backfired?

The Boris team have got more than they bargained for with Jeremy Hunt. He was the preferred candidate for Boris to face off against in the membership stage. The team saw him as less combative than Gove, and less compelling to the membership. But Hunt is putting up a good challenge. And this, bolstered by Boris’s self-induced media-woes, has left the frontrunner in a less cosy position than anticipated.

But counterintuitively, Gove could have been a safer bet. In a bid to win over MPs who were afraid of the Gove-Johnson psychodrama playing out in the public eye, Gove bound his pitch with a promise to engage in a civilised debate on policy, not pulling out any personal attacks. Hunt had to make no such commitment, knowing the MPs weren’t worried about the chaos a Hunt-Johnson final round might entail.

The most he’s bound by is a desire to secure a top cabinet position in the event of the inevitable Boris premiership. He’s putting up much more of a fight than expected and Boris is suffering.

But luckily for Boris, he’s still the most popular with the membership – for now, it seems. And media disaster followed by media disaster has rarely done much harm to him before. Hunt has been robust on social media, but it might not matter.

Not everything is going Hunt’s way, however. He endured the Laura Kuenssberg treatment as well this evening. It’s fair to criticise Boris for lacking any workable plan for Brexit, but when it comes to Hunt the situation isn’t much different. He told Kuenssberg that his grand strategy amounts to renegotiating the backstop (revolutionary), and he majored on technological solutions (novel) to the Irish border question.

Despite Boris’s slew of media catastrophes these past few days, and Hunt’s comparable success, both are in the same place when it comes to what really matters. Neither, at root, has a plan that is different to what has been tried before, and neither – yet – has a plan that the EU is likely to accept.

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