Harry Mount

Boris’s gloating critics should be ashamed of themselves

Am I the last person in the metropolitan elite bubble who likes Boris Johnson? You’d certainly think so, going on the reaction to the sad news of his divorce from his wife, Marina Wheeler, after 25 years of marriage.

Every divorce is a whirlpool of misery for all those involved: parents, children, family and close friends. And yet the coverage of Boris’s sad news bubbles on a seething undercurrent of gloating and delight.

’Twas ever thus with Boris. For all his huge fan club, there have always been MPs who are jealous of his popularity; who were angry with him, when he edited The Spectator, that he didn’t accept their stultifyingly dull pieces on ‘Whither the euro?’

Boris is completely aware of all this. When he was sacked by Michael Howard in 2004, he wrote a characteristically brilliant, contrary column on what a pleasure it was to be sacked.

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