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Deleted member 5849
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I honestly don't know, I can see arguments both ways in a purely election winning way. If the Lib Dems had their house in order to threaten in the south of the country, I'd say Johnson would be a lame duck and you'd need a more traditional Tory, who gives off an aura of not being a corrupt buffoon. As they don't, however...
On the minus side, he's becoming more and more a joke who people don't trust. On the plus side, people undoubtedly vote for him whatever he does(!) and he does have the Blairs about him in that, as you say, how do you oppose him without going more extreme, and thus less trustworthy in the eyes of many? Was the issue Corbyn had, that they had to show they'd spend even more, and offer even more freebies which meant they lurched from a 2017 manifesto which pitched it about right in my view for a Labour Party, to one that people didn't believe.
To a degree, Starmer needs to stop trying to engage Johnson however. The 'battle' there is competency vs charisma, and just let people decide which they want without trying to win an argument... even if they do go for charisma! You won't 'win' in the normal way vs Johnson however. Send Rayner out to call him a twat, and stay out of it! The downside if Johnson goes however, is that Starmer's usp is competency, so if they get another suit in, people are historically more likely to trust the blue suit than the red suit.