Sebastian Payne

The Boris Johnson guide to making headlines

Boris Johnson sure knows how to make the front pages. His interview in the latest FT Weekend Magazine — with the cover quote ‘for the first time in years, I wished I was in Westminster’ — is a prime example of his strategy. He wants to remain in the public consciousness without revealing anything new. He’s done it several times before, often in similar ways:

1. After a period of inactivity, give an interview which appears revelatory

Boris flits in and out of the spotlight, particularly when he’s busy trying to run London. Then suddenly, he appears front and centre with ‘news’. In the FT’s interview, he says ‘during the whole Syria thing, for the first time in years, I wished I was in Parliament. I watched that and I thought … I wished, I wished’.

Previous examples: interview with Michael Woolf in GQ, interview with Conservative Home’s Andrew Gimson, his Grosvenor House speech this summer.

2.

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