Salford City Conservatives proclaimed in a sponsored post last May: “Everyone wants a selfie with Boris.” However, the group no longer has a digital presence.

Elsewhere, Mr Johnson is not mentioned in Scottish Conservatives’ 24-page local election manifesto, launched on Thursday, or the Welsh Tories’ 18-page manifesto, launched on Wednesday.

Sir Keir and Sir Ed were at the centre of their respective election campaign launches in Bury and south west London.

The Tories have not published a local election manifesto in England, as is normal, and claimed that their campaign in England was launched at the spring party conference last month when Oliver Dowden, the Conservative chairman, and Mr Johnson made direct and indirect references to the local elections in their speeches.

A Conservative source insisted the local election campaign had been launched at the conference and said it was “nonsense” to suggest Mr Johnson had been airbrushed out of the campaign.

The source said: “The campaign was launched at the spring conference as usual. There was no such launch last year. The PM has several full days of campaigning in his diary very soon. Associations run their own local campaigns. They are not centrally directed, and haven’t been for at least 100 years.”

Party sources said both Mr Johnson and Mr Dowden “clearly spoke about locals and campaigning for Conservative councils in their speeches”.