Once the rest of the candidates had their say, Stewart didn’t seem quite so odd after all

Boris Johnson has agreed to appear on tonight’s BBC debate, which is good to hear, because he’s been uncharacteristically shy and retiring during the leadership contest to date. On Sunday he didn’t take part in the Channel 4 debate, and yesterday he didn’t take part in a media-hosted hustings in Parliament. His advisers may be telling him it’s safer to keep his head down, but in politics caution can be risky. It gives your opponents a new stick to beat you with.

“As far as I can see,” said Rory Stewart at yesterday’s hustings, “Boris doesn’t have a plan. I say ‘as far as I can see’, because he doesn’t talk to me, he doesn’t talk to you, he doesn’t talk to the public.” The five candidates who

did turn up took turns to face questions. First was Mr Stewart, who in a week has shot from rank outsider to bookmakers’ second favourite.

He remains an improbable candidate. His speech is still peppered with phrases that sound like the titles of upmarket self-help books (“The art of the possible”, “The wisdom of humility”). He continues to insist that he can win the support of Tory MPS by “looking deep into their souls” and whispering: “Be brave.” And, while it remains unclear how he intends to “bring the country back together”, it’s hard to avoid the suspicion that it will ultimately involve a nationwide course of yogic meditation, with all 66 million of us sitting in a circle on the grass as Mr Stewart, robed and cross-legged, levitates two feet in the air, humming.

And yet the funny thing is, despite his ethereal oddness, he somehow seems, out of all Mr Johnson’s rivals, the most normal. Compare yesterday’s second candidate: Jeremy Hunt, the own-brand David Cameron, who insisted three times he was the man to take on Brussels because “I don’t blink”. In a literal sense, this is near enough true: Mr Hunt’s eyes blink disturbingly rarely. The trouble is, it doesn’t make him look tough, so much as startled. Imagine Bambi being pinched on the bottom.

Then there was Sajid Javid, who perhaps took self-deprecation a touch too far (“My dog is probably more popular than I am”). Dominic Raab, meanwhile, still seemed bemusingly complacent about Brexit. All Britain needed, he declared, was “a bit of can-do spirit”. He sounded as if he were geeing up a troop of Boy Scouts.

The final candidate was Michael Gove. Last week, the Tory MP Mark Francois claimed Mr Gove wasn’t a “proper” Brexiteer. Mr Gove revealed that he’d told his mother this – yes, his mother – and she’d been quick to comfort him. “She said: ‘Son, I’ll tell you who’s a proper Brexiteer. You are!’” Suddenly, Rory Stewart doesn’t seem quite so strange, does he?