AS BORIS JOHNSON, MP for Uxbridge becomes a shoo-in for the next Tory Party leader and as a result the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, let us not forget what we are really getting — the next instalment of the Boris Johnson show.

While l was at City Hall for the whole of his two terms, my abiding memory of Boris Johnson as mayor of London was when the riots started in the summer of 2011. He did not want to come back from his holidays when London was burning.

It was the only time he was well out of kilter with the public mood in London and so much so that he got a very hostile reception when he did eventually get back to a public meeting. At that critical point the English riots of 2011 were very much a London affair before spreading throughout England. The London mayor was criticised by locals over the slow police response to high street looting and his sluggish return from holiday as he was heckled in Clapham Junction over the London riots.

Many people backing him, including himself, tell us how great his time at City Hall had been. You just have to look at the early exiters from the leadership contest like James Cleverly MP as they compete for attention and a place for a seat in the Boris Johnson cabinet.

A much better insight on Boris Johnson in charge can be found in a blog piece by Brian Coleman, another previous Assembly Member at City Hall. Both men served him as chair of the London Fire Brigade, but Coleman’s piece gives much better understanding of the man himself than anything else you may have read so far or will in the coming few weeks.

He suggests that he is a bad judge of character if you look at his appointments, particularly very early on during his two terms. His performance at Mayor’s Question Time was dreadful at first and really did not improve.

And he simply never read briefs or prepared for speeches. As a result there was a “litany of broken promises” and he “flew by the seat of his pants” most of the time. So the thought of a “chancer” like him in Downing Street is terrifying. In an increasingly uncertain world, where the country is divided, this is extremely dangerous.

So I was not surprised that Boris Johnson did not turn up for the C4 debate for the Tory Party leadership on Sunday night. After all he would be too busy writing another column for the Telegraph’s Monday morning edition, as he has done for most of political life. After all this was still his main income earner during his two terms as mayor. Showing to all what his priority is all along — himself.

He has moved from being an urban liberal and Remainer as mayor to an arch-Brexiteer in the Commons. Against Heathrow expansion as mayor and now that power beckons at No 10 very much less likely to stop it.

So the Boris Johnson show continues to his next chapter, a move into 10 Downing Street with an immediate promise to deliver our exit from the EU by the end of October. Though it is not clear how this will be delivered at all as he presents a “no deal” scenario to all while the numbers don’t exist in Parliament for it. Maybe the next act in the show will be a Houdini act or landing on his face.


Murad Qureshi is a former Labour member of the Greater London Assembly.