'You can't write off Boris until he's buried at a crossroads with a stake in his heart', former boss Max Hastings says
22 March 2023, 18:22
Boris Johnson's former boss says you cannot write him off until he is "buried at a crossroads with a stake driven through his heart".
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Max Hastings, the former editor of the Daily Telegraph, said he is a "blight on not only the Conservative Party" but British politics on the whole.
He spoke after Mr Johnson fought for his political career at the House of Commons Privilege Committee, insisting he did not intentionally or recklessly mislead Parliament about Partygate.
"I don't think you can write off Boris Johnson until he is buried at a crossroads with a stake driven through his heart," Mr Hastings told LBC's Tonight with Andrew Marr.
"But on the other hand, I think that he is a blight on not only on the Conservative Party, but on the British body politick.
"The question is whether the Conservative Party have the courage to move on, have the courage to say this man has done terrible things to our country. He's done terrible things to our party. This must come to an end. Now, I'm not sure that they have the guts to do that. But this is what we're going to find out in the hours and days ahead."
Mr Johnson is waiting to see how the Privileges Committee finds on the question of whether he misled MPs over his initial statements on Partygate.
He admitted the statements were misleading because he did not have all the information he needed at the time, and that he did not realise the events broke Covid rules when he was at them.
The committee could recommend Mr Johnson be suspended for so long it would trigger a by-election, if MPs were to approve it.
That could effectively end his political career - and not every Conservative would be sad to see him leave top-table politics.
"We have to hope that the Johnson era is going to come to be perceived in the years ahead as a sort of dreadful aberration, as something that the British people realised was a disaster, and that the Conservative Party now has the courage to realise was disaster and to send Boris Johnson back where he belongs to the music halls," Mr Hastings said.
"He is a brilliant journalist. He's a brilliant entertainer. He had no place in British public life."
