Last weekend, Rishi Sunak failed to wear a seatbelt in the back seat of a moving vehicle, an offense that carries a $125 fine. In doing so, he became the second sitting British prime minister to be punished by the police for breaking the law. Had this happened to anyone else at any other time, the fine may have caused something of a scandal. Lucky for Sunak, though, it was completely overshadowed by the exploits of his predecessor but one. That’s right—Boris Johnson might be out of office, but he’s still making an almighty hash of things.
Johnson, at this point less a man and more a whirling pinwheel of ethical unsoundness, is once again in hot water. Last week, The Times of London revealed that Johnson had received a personal loan worth more than $1 million from Canadian businessman Sam Blyth in 2020. But what is turning heads is the fact that the man who facilitated the introduction between Johnson and Blyth was Richard Sharp, a Tory donor who was then under consideration for the government-appointed role of BBC chairman—which he was awarded shortly after the loan went through.
The implication is that this is an almighty conflict of interest for everyone involved, that Johnson was so indebted to Sharp that he looked kindly upon his application for a role that many see as the most powerful in British media. For what it’s worth, Johnson strongly denies that this is the case—confronted by reporters on his own doorstep this week, he wheezed, “Richard Sharp is a good and a wise man, but he knows absolutely nothing about my personal finances. I can tell you that for one hundred percent ding dang sure.” But that hasn’t stopped Sharp from apologizing for his involvement and ordering an internal BBC investigation into his own behavior.
It’s also worth pointing out that Johnson, Sharp, and Blyth had dinner together at Chequers, the prime minister’s country home, before the loan, and questions remain as to whether or not this took place when the country was meant to be in lockdown.
Nevertheless, the sheer volume of questions this raises is incredible. Why didn’t Sharp mention any of this when he was applying to be chairman? Why didn’t Johnson? Did Johnson breach the ministerial code of conduct? And, honestly, what exactly did he need the money for?
For years now, Johnson has sought loans and bailouts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars whenever he needed his lavish lifestyle funded. His wedding last year was covered, to the tune of $28,500, by Lord and Lady Bamford. He was given an $18,000 holiday to St. Vincent and the Grenadines in 2019 by Tory donor David Ross. He went on free holidays at the Umbrian villa belonging to Evgeny Lebedev, the son of a former K.G.B. agent, whom Johnson subsequently appointed to the House of Lords.
When Johnson redecorated 10 Downing Street with garish gold wallpaper, he tried to get Conservative peer David Brownlow to pay for it, but he was found out and had to stump up himself. Similarly, when Johnson set out to build a $186,000 tree house in the back garden of Chequers, Brownlow was also reportedly approached to fund it. Or maybe there’s a more prosaic reason for the loan? After all, Johnson is a man with an expensive divorce in his recent past and at least seven children to feed. Look at his haircut, for crying out loud. The man is clearly suffering.
For years now, Johnson has sought loans and bailouts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Back when he was prime minister, Johnson quickly learned that he could divert the world’s attention from his personal failings by popping over to Kyiv for a morale-boosting public walkabout with Volodymyr Zelensky. But now that he is merely a lowly backbencher with no meaningful political heft, Johnson can no longer resort to such grandstanding … Oh, no, wait, yes, he can.
Johnson turned up in Kyiv on Sunday night, glad-handing locals like a man who wasn’t currently drowning in the quicksand of his own greed. There was just one problem: his trip was funded by U.K. taxpayers. Even though Johnson has no ministerial heft any more. Even though the money would have been better spent arming Ukrainian troops. Even though, you know, it could have probably been a Zoom call.
On top of everything else, it has been reported that HarperCollins has paid Johnson a substantial advance for his memoirs: more than $630,000 in fact, according to the latest register of the interests of M.P.’s. By any metric, it has been quite a lucrative few weeks for Johnson, since he also earned another $868,969 for giving a few speeches. This would more than cover the $275,000 that Johnson is expected to rack up in legal fees for the Partygate inquiry, although, as The Times of London reports, the taxpayer gets to foot that bill for him.
But back to the memoir. We probably shouldn’t expect it any time soon, since he’s still on the hook for the Shakespeare biography he was meant to have delivered back in 2016, for which he received a $620,000 advance.
Nevertheless, when it does arrive, we can expect what his publisher has called a “prime ministerial memoir like no other.” Quite how this claim will be reflected remains to be seen. Perhaps, given his repeatedly threatened political comeback, it’ll be the first to be published while the author is a sitting prime minister. Perhaps, given the accusations of plagiarism that have occasionally dogged him, it’ll be the first prime-ministerial memoir to be churned out by an A.I. chatbot. Or perhaps, just perhaps, it will actually manage to tell the truth. For a man like Johnson, that really would be unprecedented.
Stuart Heritage is a Kent, U.K.–based Writer at Large for AIR MAIL and the author of Bedtime Stories for Worried Liberals
