There’s plenty of egg-on-face – or just embarrassed silence – for the many pundit hacks, often former Tory colleagues of Boris, who wrote him off as a priapic clown. Some have been heaping on their disapproval for years. Their ranks include Max Hastings, his former editor, (‘The Tory party is about to foist a tasteless joke upon the British people.’), Simon Heffer, Peter Oborne and Bruce ‘Brute’ Anderson who flounced out of the Spectator’s offices back in 2002 in a fit of pique after Boris commissioned an article by George Galloway. ‘This Clown Prince Must Be Stopped’ was a typical Bruce column in the anti-Boris years that followed. The left were no keener. When Corridor caught up with Armando Iannucci (creator of The Thick of It) before the election, he said: “I think Boris will be gone by next week, to be honest. When your family starts resigning, that’s probably a bad sign.”
It will be interesting to see how many pundits change their Boris tune in the interests of not having their access cut off Today Programme-style. The Brute is first in his drinks column. ‘‘The PM is now master of the battlefield…if we can draw one conclusion it is this: never underestimate Boris’ Johnson.”
