Source on Boris Johnson

“Boris sometimes seems affronted when criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility.”

“Most politicians are ambitious and ruthless, but Boris is a gold medal egomaniac. I would not trust him with my wife nor – from painful experience – my wallet. It is unnecessary to take any moral view about his almost crazed infidelities, but it is hard to believe that any man so conspicuously incapable of controlling his own libido is fit to be trusted with controlling the country. His chaotic public persona is not an act – he is, indeed, manically disorganised about everything except his own image management. He is also a far more ruthless, and frankly nastier, figure than the public appreciates.”

“Boris is an intellectual. They are rare among PMs. Gordon Brown was one, as was A J Balfour at the beginning of the 20th century. Boris should write a book a year to keep his mind engaged and active.”

“Boris will be the most fun prime minister since Harold Wilson. We need that quality back into the heart of the nation and recognise that quality of life matters as much as economic statistics.”

“Boris is a big man who doesn’t bear grudges. He should have a broad-based government of all talents. Once Brexit is resolved, there'll be long overdue challenges to solve.”

“The most accomplished liar in public life — perhaps the best liar ever to serve as prime minister.”

“[Response to Q1109] Fundamentally, the reason for all these problems was bad policy, bad decisions, bad planning and bad operational capability. It doesn't matter that you have great people doing communications if the Prime Minister changes his mind 10 times a day, and then calls up the media and contradicts his own policy, day after day after day. You are going to have a communications disaster zone. Few things are discussed more inaccurately than communications”

“[Response to Q1126] nobody could find a way around the problem of the Prime Minister just, like a shopping trolley, smashing from one side of the aisle into the other.”

“He rewrites reality in his mind afresh according to the moment’s demands. He lies — so blatantly, so naturally, so regularly — that there is no real distinction possible with him, as there is with normal people, between truth and lies.”

“Most politicians, as far as I can work out, are pretty incompetent, and then have a veneer of competence, you do seem to do it the other way around.”

“Johnson and I really loathed each other. It was obvious. We really never spoke behind the scenes very much.”

“[H]is inner emptiness made it imperative for him always to be the centre of attention, craving affirmation and breaking truth and convention to achieve it.”

“[In 1964 or 1965] There was her baby, Alexander, a few months old, lying naked on a bath mat, kicking his feet in the air, round, pink and fat, with a remarkable shock of electrically bright blond hair. As I gazed at him, I didn't find that baby at all appealing, too pink and too noisy.”

“That baby on the bath mat, who so decisively put me off the idea of teen motherhood, grew up to be the most disgraced prime minister under his ludicrously changed name of Boris: he looks much the same.”

“He's not a Tory, he’s somebody who used the Tory party ... he attacks what he calls the Westminster elite but he is so Westminster elite at heart - he’s wealthy, socially liberal, believes in animal rights, carbon net zero - he is not some Lee Anderson.”