William Atkinson

Who can blame Boris Johnson for feeling smug?

Boris Johnson (Getty images)

The real victor of these local elections? Boris Johnson. According to Oscar Wilde, the only thing in life worse than being talked about, is not being talked about. It’s a sign of Boris Johnson’s skill in attracting headlines that even as the Conservatives suffer a shellacking at the local elections, his being turned away from a polling station for failing to bring ID – a new requirement under a law he introduced – is still a leading news story.

In a career pockmarked by marital imbroglios, cake ambushes, and faulty zipwires, this doesn’t reach the top 20 of the ex-prime minister’s most notable embarrassment. While LBC’s James O’Brien puts on his tinfoil hat to speculate about a pre-planned, limelight-hunting brain fade, Johnson’s mistakes strike me as more cock-up than conspiracy. Either way, he has a much better reason to be smug today.

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