Boris Johnson is back, but he's 'spouting the same old lies'

By Jacob Paul (with Emily, Jon & Lewis)

The former Conservative Prime Minister has stormed back onto the scene with his new autobiography spouting the same old unfounded claims.

In brief…

• Boris Johnson has returned to the spotlight to promote his new memoir this week.
• His strange comments on his media round have attracted attention, from regretting his apology for Partygate to claiming Breixt has “saved lives.”
• The News Agents say the former prime minister was "vintage himself" in his interviews.

What’s the story?

Boris Johnson is back.

You may have thought the disgraced former prime minister whose time in Number 10 was mired in scandal had been and gone with his time in the spotlight.

But he has returned to promote his new memoir - ‘Unleashed’ - although on today’s episode of The News Agents Jon says he could also have called the book ‘untrue, ‘unethical’ or ‘unhinged’.

 The book takes a look at his tumultuous 15 years in politics, from Covid to Brexit.

It is also mixed in with his own attacks on everyone who stood in his way, from the Supreme court to Dominic Cummings.

Doing the media rounds this week, the former Tory leader made a string of controversial comments.

Boris Johnson is back - with the same old Brexit lies

What has Johnson said?

Speaking on LBC on Tuesday, Johnson’s interview with Nick Ferrari was nothing short of explosive.

When Ferrari asked Johnson to give Brexit a rating, he said it is currently a “nine out of ten”, insisting that it has been “great”.

He added: "It’s 10/10 for constitutional purity. In terms of delivering yet for the country, clearly it’s going to take time before it delivers on its potential.”

He even went as far as saying Brexit “saved lives”, saying that thanks to Brexit the UK “had the freedom to vaccinate faster than anybody else,” something Emily says is simply not true.

“It has always been true that under European law, the UK could act independently to approve the vaccine in an emergency.

In other words,” Emily says, “the vaccine rollout had nothing to do with Brexit.”

On Keir Starmer accepting freebies, he said: “It’s unbelievable. I mean, the guy, he's a silk, right? I mean, he must be worth a bob or two. Why has he got some guy paying for his spectacles?”

Johnson added that it  “looks greedy” for Starmer to have accepted these free gifts.

He said: “Well, whatever, £70,000 in gifts from a guy, when you actually you're on a perfectly good salary from the government anyway.

“And, you know, that looks greedy, right? But if you then give the guy a pass to Number 10, that looks corrupt.”

Johnson is still optimistic about his own party, despite its worst ever defeat in the July general election.

When asked whether the Toreis would win the election, he said: “I think they will. At this rate, they unquestionably will.”

Elsewhere in the interview, he denied lying about Partygate - the scandal that triggered his downfall, insisting he wasn’t having a “knees-up” while the rest of the country was sticking to social distancing regulations.

Earlier this week, he said he regretted apologising for Partygate, saying he made a "mistake" issuing "pathetic" and "grovelling" apologies.

Johnson said these "made it look as though we were far more culpable than we were".

Johnson denied misleading the House of Commons by proroguing parliament, a move that was later deemed unlawful.

What’s The News Agents’ take?

“Boris Johnson is back spouting the same old lies that followed him around when he left,” Emily says.

It’s astonishing, she says, that after this period of reflection Boris’ takeaway is that he should “never, ever have admitted anything [he] did”.

Jon asks: “What is Boris doing? Is this part of the comeback tour?

“Boris has wanted to make money for some time… is this just part of the money making machine? Is he trying to cause trouble in the Conservative Party?”

The release of Boris’ book comes in the midst of the Tory party leadership race and just after the Conservative Party conference. Emily and Lewis suspect that this is no coincidence.

Lewis says: “He wants the party to come to him, a grateful, recalcitrant party, to come to him and say, ‘Boris was terribly sorry about everything, please come and stand in the leadership [race.]”

Emily agrees: “The timing has to mean something… I think it's actually really good that he's doing this now.”

That’s because, Emily says, people may look at the current crop of candidates in the Tory leadership race - Robert Jenrick, James Cleverly, Kemi Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat, - and think, “really? Is that the offering?”

When Boris Johnson pops up again, they are reminded why they got rid of him two years ago, Emily says.

But Lewis argues Johnson’s return is also a reminder of why some Tory members love him.

“He was vintage himself in all his interviews,” Lewis says.

He adds it's possible that Johnson "continues to be a process of beatification within the Tory party, rather than everyone actually facing up to the truth, which is that he had become a crushing liability and that he lied.”

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