Boris Johnson’s former boss says the former prime minister is not a “decent human being” and made fools of the public while in No 10.
Max Hastings, who was editor of The Daily Telegraph when Mr Johnson worked there, slated his ex-staffer’s behaviour after the privileges committee report found he repeatedly lied to Parliament before being complicit in a campaign of abuse and intimidation.
“I don’t hate Boris Johnson. He is what he always was – doing what the dog does against the lamppost,” Mr Hastings told the BBC.
The committee said it would have recommended a 90-day suspension had the ex-PM not quit, and concluded he should be barred from holding a pass to Parliament.
The former editor said he was terribly sad his old paper was prepared to still back the former PM.
Mr Johnson was the paper’s Brussels correspondent and then chief political columnist in the 1980s and 1990s.
Mr Hastings went on: “The people I’ve got it in for are the people who supported him and still support him in the Commons and the Conservative Party when we know him for what he is.
“And just to say ‘we don’t care if he’s a serial liar, we don’t care if he’s made fools of the British people by partying while the country suffered – all we care about is all we care about is we think he can win elections and we think he’s a good bloke who the public warm to’ – I passionately reject that argument, and I think we should reject the sort of people willing to go along with that.
“We want the restoration of truth in politics, and although I doubt whether I shall vote Conservative at the next election, I want Rishi Sunak to succeed because I think he’s a decent human being, which Boris Johnson is not.”
He added that his former employee made a shambles of things in Downing Street. “All the vital issues facing British life… Johnson made fools of us all in Downing Street and he must never be allowed to do so again.”
