BRITISH politics may be moving a mile a minute at the moment, but as far as weeks go it has been a pretty eventful one for Boris Johnson.

Not for the right reasons, mind.

Monday’s embarrassingly convenient front pages depicted the Tory leadership candidate in a loving moment with his partner Carrie Symonds just days after police were called to his flat when neighbours reported screaming.

If Mr Johnson honestly thought a simple picture would pacify the public and put the issue to bed, he was very poorly mistaken.

Ducking out of a TV debate with leadership rival Jeremy Hunt on Tuesday certainly did not help matters either.

For a man who is supposedly unafraid to speak his mind, Mr Johnson seems to be terrified of facing public scrutiny.

The former Mayor of London has so far only been seriously quizzed by Iain Dale, a radio host and one-time Conservative general election candidate.

It is bad enough that the next Prime Minister is being chosen by 160,000 Conservative party members who do not represent the views of the general population.

But the fact that Mr Johnson is refusing to even be scrutinised on TV by a media that has been largely friendly towards him is just embarrassing.

In truth, his leadership campaign has been shambolic so far, while Jeremy Hunt has done a decent job.

The Foreign Secretary might be an outsider, but he has hardly put a foot wrong in his battle against Boris.

While Mr Johnson hid from the limelight on Tuesday, or at least tried to, Mr Hunt was fielding questions from the public on Twitter.

He even slipped in the odd self-deprecating joke, which we Brits will always meet with a light chuckle.

His term as Health Secretary may have been disastrous, culminating in what was the first junior doctors’ strike for more than 40 years, but as Foreign Secretary his reign has been fairly stable.

Yes, he may have compared the EU to the Soviet Union and supported Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, which has placed 20 million people at risk of starvation, but sadly that is all par for the course as far as foreign ministers go.

Mr Hunt has been prone to the odd gaffe, including referring to his Chinese wife as Japanese, but nothing in the realm of Mr Johnson’s term as Foreign Secretary.

“Highlights” from his reign include discussing alcohol in a Sikh temple, comparing the 2018 World Cup in Russia to Hitler’s Olympic Games, and claiming a Libyan city would become prosperous if it “cleared the dead bodies away”.

Hardly diplomatic language for someone who was employed to be a diplomat.

It seems a shame to have written this far without actually talking about the policies of either Conservative candidate, but when scandals concerning Mr Johnson’s behaviour are coming thick and fast, it raises questions about his ability to lead.

It is also telling that the one policy Mr Johnson is remembered for, the rentable “Boris Bikes” in London, were actually introduced by Ken Livingstone during his two terms as mayor.

As with the European elections, the only thing that seems to matter in this leadership contest is the candidates’ Brexit positions.

But both Mr Hunt and Mr Johnson essentially have the same idea... Brexit will come in whatever form on October 31, deal or no deal.

No deal seems the more likely option, considering the EU has repeated multiple times that the only acceptable deal is the one it spent two years negotiating on with Theresa May.

But both candidates are insisting on getting a different deal through Parliament that will prevent Northern Ireland remaining in the EU if the two sides cannot reach an agreement on their future relationship.

If this sounds like deja vu, that is because we have been discussing this dilemma for what seems like forever.

Come next month we will have a different Prime Minister, but we will still be debating the same aspects of Brexit that have plagued us since the start of the year.

Frankly, it is hard to see what either Mr Hunt or Mr Johnson could do to resolve the debate without calling a General Election.

But with the Tories fearing a wipeout at the hands of the Brexit Party, this could be rather unlikely too.

It is clear both leadership candidates want to get Brexit done and dusted by October.

It seems like a given now, which is why the race for Prime Minister has become a mere personality contest. Personal scandals are now front and centre, which is why Mr Johnson has suffered so poorly this week. Mr Hunt should pat himself on the back for being so boring.