Boris Johnson is unlikely to “come back and serve in frontline politics”, according to the man who was his Director of Communications when he was Mayor of London.
Will Walden told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One that the former PM is playing “clever politics” by “leaving the door ajar”. But he thinks the Tory party isn’t used to going back in time unless there is a “pretty strange set of circumstances for them to do that”. He also reckons Johnson “needs to earn some money and he needs to move on”.
Walden – a former BBC journalist – also gave his take on Johnson’s final speech as PM this morning, suggesting it “wasn’t particularly dignified, reflective or statesman-like”, adding the first part of his speech felt “pretty bitter when he said they’ve changed the rules halfway through”.
Walden describes it as “classic Boris” – “devoid of some of the actual facts” and says it “paid no recognition to the fact that the reason he’s in this mess and walking away today can probably almost be laid almost exclusively at his behaviour and the way he has responded to crises in the last 12 months”.
