Abstract
‘I have known Johnson since the 1980s, when I edited The Daily Telegraph, and he was our flamboyant Brussels correspondent. I have argued for a decade that, while he is a brilliant entertainer who made a popular maître d’ for London as its mayor, he is unfit for national office, because it seems he cares for no interest save his own fame and gratification… We can scarcely strip the emperor's clothes from a man who has built a career, or at least a lurid love life, out of strutting without them.’
Max Hastings on Boris Johnson, in The Guardian
‘Boris's peccadilloes were more absurd, complicated and over-publicised than the shambles of the personal lives of other journalists. But his editorial opinions were sensible and consistent. His schtick grew tiresome, like an over-familiar vaudeville act, but he was at all times a person of goodwill and his foibles were deployed to the benefit of the enterprise. He had his lapses, but he was capable, successful and reliable when it counted, and he is, as he appears, a pleasant man. Max is an ill-tempered snob with a short attention span. He has his talents, but it pains me to report that when seriously tested, he was a coward and a flake. I think Boris will be fine.’
Conrad Black, former newspaper proprietor, in The Spectator
‘One of Max's finest opinion pieces was a devastating critique of the EU, which, he confessed, he could no longer support. When voters agreed with him in a referendum (which he had called for), Max once again volte-faced and, craving the approbation of the establishment, which never quite took him to its bosom, scuttled off to the Remainer Times. I begrudge him none of this and only slightly regret the Rothermere millions that I poured down his very receptive gullet. Where Conrad is right is that Max is an egregious snob – something we journalists, who exist to puncture pomposity, should never be.’
Paul Dacre, former editor of the Daily Mail, in The Spectator