Boris Johnson last night drafted in Iain Duncan Smith to put his stuttering leadership campaign back on track.
In a surprise move, the former Tory leader was appointed as Mr Johnson's campaign chairman with the task of steering him into 10 Downing Street next month.
Sources told the Daily Mail that Mr Duncan Smith has been given a wide-ranging role in which he will also advise Mr Johnson on the make-up of his No 10 team and on planning for his first 100 days, during which he has pledged to deliver Brexit.
The appointment came amid growing divisions within the Johnson camp about a strategy that has allowed Jeremy Hunt to seize the initiative in recent days.
We’ve got this licked: Boris Johnson hold Lucky the dog on a visit to the Surrey Hills yesterday amid concerns over the Tory frontrunner's campaign strategy
Surprise move: Boris Johnson last night drafted in former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith (pictured at Westminster last week) to put his stuttering leadership campaign back on track
First he brought back the Routemaster to London's streets, and then there was his infamous £350million Brexit bus – and yesterday Boris Johnson's love affair with public transport took a surprising new twist.
The Tory leadership frontrunner revealed the hobby that keeps him busy in his spare time – crafting wooden wine crates into model buses.
He said he likes to relax by painting passengers 'enjoying themselves' on the sides of the crates.
Asked about his hobbies on Talk Radio, Mr Johnson replied: 'I like to paint or I make things. I get old wooden crates, and I paint them. I suppose it's a box that's been used to contain two wine bottles. It will have a dividing thing, and I turn it into a bus. I paint the passengers enjoying themselves on the wonderful bus. Low carbon, of a kind that we brought to the streets of London that reduces CO2, reduces nitrous oxide, reducing pollution.'
It was revealed earlier this month that Mr Johnson enjoys spending the evening painting with his partner, Carrie Symonds, and some of the couple's paintings hang on the walls of her flat in south London.
Mr Johnson's Brexit bus introduced the discredited claim that leaving the EU could lead to £350million more a week being spent on the NHS.
Former minister James Wharton and former defence secretary Gavin Williamson, who masterminded Mr Johnson's success in the first round of the contest, have both been moved aside.
Instead, Mr Duncan Smith will now be responsible for setting campaign strategy, assisted by Mark Fullbrook, an associate of Australian campaign strategist Sir Lynton Crosby, who has been offering Mr Johnson informal advice for weeks.
Mr Johnson's campaign to succeed Theresa May was rocked on Friday when it emerged neighbours had called the police after hearing his 31-year-old girlfriend Carrie Symonds scream 'get off me' and 'get out of my flat' during a midnight row.
In the following 48 hours, Mr Johnson's team was forced on to the back foot as he resisted pressure to offer an explanation for the blazing argument. At that point, Mr Johnson called Mr Duncan Smith to ask him to take charge.
Mr Johnson yesterday dismissed claims that his campaign was in crisis, telling reporters: 'I think that question is beyond satire. We're out campaigning and we're getting a fantastic response.'
But insiders yesterday acknowledged that he had lost momentum in the wake of revelations about his domestic row.
One said: 'I don't think anyone would deny it's been a bumpy few days. The transition from the parliamentary campaign, which was a great success, to the campaign in the country has proved to be harder than people thought. We need to reach a different audience now.'
Another senior figure on the team said: 'It is not a question of panic, but we do need to get this thing back on track.
'There is time to do it, but there is not time to waste. The incident at the weekend knocked things off course. There wasn't really a plan for dealing with it.'
Thirsty work: Mr Johnson has a drink in Oxshott, Surrey, with former leadership rival Dominic Raab who was eliminated from the contest at an earlier round
One source yesterday insisted that Mr Wharton, who has held the post of campaign manager since the start, would remain closely involved in strategy.
But Mr Duncan Smith's appointment led to an immediate change of gear yesterday, with Mr Johnson toughening his rhetoric on Brexit and breaking free from the 'submarine' strategy that saw him fight shy of the media in the first phase of his bid for the leadership.
In the year since he quit as foreign secretary, Boris Johnson has earned more than £1 million, the Daily Mail can reveal.
The Tory leadership frontrunner has pocketed the huge sum by making a string of lucrative speeches, penning newspaper articles and royalties from various books.
He has also been given hundreds of thousands in donations from political supporters. Since early July 2018, when he resigned as foreign secretary, Mr Johnson has received £1,020,861 in earnings, gifts, donations and loans.
For his weekly column in The Daily Telegraph, Mr Johnson has received £275,000, and he has earned £400,000 for making just eight speeches. The most lucrative was at Living Media India in New Delhi, for which he was paid £122,900.
Hospitality he received included watching cricket at the Oval (£1,800) and a trip to the US (£16,846).
He is said to have been stung by Mr Hunt taunting him as a 'coward' for avoiding TV debates and interviews. Having previously agreed to just one broadcast interview since Mrs May announced she was stepping down, Mr Johnson has now conducted three in 24 hours, as well as carrying out a number of
