Boris The Terrible

His innate intelligence and inherent flaws may help Boris Johnson lead Britain and the Conservatives out of the Brexit mess

- Ajish P. Joy

“I WOULD NOT take Boris’s word about whether it is Monday or Tuesday.... He is not a man to believe in, to trust or respect.... He is bereft of judgment, loyalty and discretion.” Certainly not a ringing endorsement for Boris Johnson, the odds-on favourite to become the next British prime minister. There is no reason to disbelieve Max Hastings, who saved Johnson’s career by hiring him for The Daily Telegraph after he was sacked by The Times for manufacturing a quote.

Johnson, who is locked in a twoway race with Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt for the leadership of the Conservative Party, has had a checkered career in journalism and politics, marred by constant ideological as well as personal flip-flops. Johnson and Hunt were selected by Conservative MPs as candidates and the final selection will be made by around 1,60,000 party members, 97 per cent of whom are white and 71 per cent male. The results will be out on July 23.

This is the second time Johnson has come close to claiming the top post. His first chance came two years ago during the Brexit referendum when he ditched prime minister David Cameron, his junior at Eton and Oxford, who was leading the campaign to keep Britain within the European Union. Johnson’s about turn, however, was not entirely unexpected. At Oxford, he had aligned himself with the leftist Social Democratic Party to win the presidency of the students’ union, although he was a Conservative and a member of the Bullingdon Club, the two-century-old, male-only preserve of young patricians.