After a tumultuous four months, the PM enters a familiar Downing Street balancing act

It is hard to imagine any British prime minister has been through such a rollercoaster of personal emotion in the space of four months as Boris Johnson. Only a month ago the prime minister was in a hospital ward wondering whether the coronavirus that continued to grip his lungs would mean that he would die in office only three months after securing a resounding personal mandate from a Brexit-weary electorate.

If things had gone a different way in St Thomas ’hospital, to use Johnson’s own phrase, he would indeed have died in public office, probably the most famous of the 218,000 victims of coronavirus worldwide.

Now a month later, and possibly many weeks before he or his fiancee Carrie Symonds had expected, he was rushed back to hospital, but to see the delivery of his child. Symonds is herself only just recovering from the same virus.

No date can yet be set for their summer wedding, the first involving a serving prime minister since 1822, as no date has been set by the prime minister to allow large gatherings to go ahead.

If all this seems like an overblown episode of a very modern family soap opera, and somewhat distracting in the midst of the biggest shock to the British economy since the second world war, do not forget that the final terms of his disputed divorce settlement with Marina Wheeler have only just been sorted. The bruised emotions of his children from previous relationships also need tending to.