LONDON (Reuters) – Former prime minister Boris Johnson was named as a new columnist for the Daily Mail newspaper on Friday, in a return to a journalistic career that has seen him write for several leading British titles and sacked from one for making up a quote.
Johnson, 58, who stood down as a lawmaker last week over an inquiry which found him guilty of deliberately misleading parliament over parties during COVID-19 lockdowns, will write for the Daily Mail every Saturday, the newspaper said.
“Whether you’re a Boris fan or not, it’s going to be required reading – both in Westminster and for millions across the world,” the paper said.
Since resigning as prime minister last year, Johnson, one of Britain’s best known and most divisive politicians, has gone on to earn millions of pounds from speaking tours.
His return to journalism is expected to be a lucrative new job and offers the former leader a vehicle in one of Britain’s most widely-read right-leaning newspapers to express his views on the government and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
He resigned as a lawmaker with a blistering attack on a parliamentary committee which ruled he had deliberately misled parliament with his accounts of rule-breaking parties. Parliament will decide whether to approve the committee’s findings on Monday.
He also used his statement to take a swipe at Sunak, saying the country needed a “properly Conservative government” that would reduce business and personal taxes.
Johnson, no stranger to scandal, started his working life in journalism, but was sacked by the Times newspaper for making up a quote. He went on to have a career at the Daily Telegraph, where as a Brussels correspondent he lambasted the European Union in vivid if not always accurate prose.
He later pursued parallel media and political careers as editor of the Spectator magazine and as a member of parliament, and before becoming prime minister wrote a regular column for the Daily Telegraph. That column often saw him criticised for his views – he was accused of Islamophobia when he said Muslim women who wear burqas looked like letter boxes or bank robbers.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Piper; Editing by Peter Graff)
