This is no funeral oration. I come to reward Boris Johnson, to not bury him, writes David Frost.
True, he’s leaving Parliament, however solely, as he himself says, “for now”. Even although he already has all of the glittering prizes – editor of the Spectator, mayor of London, overseas secretary, and prime minister – I by some means doubt the story is over.
Many individuals assume that Boris and I return a great distance. We don’t. We have been at Oxford on the similar time, however by no means in the identical circles. But our paths did cross in Brussels within the early 1990s when I was on the UK Mission and he was The Telegraph correspondent, launching assault after assault on the regulatory excesses of the Commission.
His vibrant reporting about bent bananas captured a reality in regards to the European Union – that it was set on a course which, except softened or halted, would ultimately show unimaginable for Britain to reside with. It turned out we each thought that – and we’d each come collectively, 25 years later, to get us out for good.
Over all that point, after all, Boris was creating the star high quality and the general public persona that might take him all the way in which to the highest. His capability to soak up criticism and join with the viewers on Have I Got News for You?, within the days when it was humorous, was maybe the first signal that we had a real political expertise in addition to an amazing author. That expertise took him by means of the ups and downs of his time as MP for Henley, after which to the nice alternative of mayor of London.
David Frost: We ought to doubt Boris’s story is over
