Boris Johnson should be more Jekyll, less Hyde: George Osborne tells Ruth Davidson

23 December 2019, 09:40

In an interview with Ruth Davidson, George Osborne gave his thoughts on the Prime Minister.

Ruth Davidson asked George Osborne how he could square the Boris Johnson he knew when he was Mayor of London with the hard-Brexit Boris Johnson of today.

Osborne replied: "One of the good things about my life, and one of the exciting things, is I've known Boris Johnson for 25 years.

"He is enormously entertaining and engaging and also a contradiction.

"He's a very talented, in many ways brilliant, political operator.

But often he'll adopt causes to get himself to the top that I don't agree with, including Brexit."

He continued: "I always think when I look at Boris... I think he's got what it takes to be prime minister and he clearly fills the job, but I kind of wish he was the half of the Boris, the Dr Jekyll side of Boris Johnson.

"Which is the liberal, tolerant, pro-immigration, centrist Tory who was so successful in this city, London.

Not the Mr Hyde who is divide the country, push Brexit to its political limits in order to eke out the advantage amongst the Brexiteers."

I think he would be much better served as being the Boris Johnson who was a very successful mayor and there are glimpses of it, interestingly."

Osborne also argued that Osborne, now he has "made it", should no longer "divide" the country.

He needs to "resist some of the baser temptations."

He also said: "Boris Johnson believes in Boris Johnson. That's not necessarily a bad thing in politics."

You can watch the whole interview from 'An Inconvenient Ruth' here.

Listen to An Inconvenient Ruth with George Osborne this evening from 9pm.