HAVING seen how he ran his campaigns for the London mayoralty, it became clear to me some time ago that Boris Johnson’s strategy to gain and maintain power was simple: create a circus headlined by himself to distract from an absence of anything offered by him that will meaningfully improve the lives of those he supposedly serves.  

The bumbling persona, the willingness to flip from presenting himself as a modern metropolitan liberal to a reactionary right-wing culture warrior, the gimmicky policy announcements: all of them exist to ensure the topic of conversation is anything other than his actual record on the issues that impact millions.

There’s a reason he always came up with eccentric remarks and schemes while sneaking through measures such as closing 10 London fire stations.