A 2007 article by Boris Johnson has resurfaced in which he rails against the ‘arrogance’ and ‘contempt’ of Gordon Brown taking over from Tony Blair as prime minister without a general election.
The Telegraph opinion piece reads as deeply embarrassing to a man who is currently eager to, er, take over from Theresa May as prime minister without a general election.
What bothered him in 2007 was “Gordon Brown’s apparent belief that he can just trample on the democratic will of the British people,” he wrote.
WATCH: Boris Johnson accused of ‘Trumpian tactics’ as he kicks off leadership bidAlmost every criticism he makes regarding handovers of power could ring true today.
“Everybody seems to have forgotten that the last general election was only two years ago,” said Johnson.
“Perhaps I missed it, but I don’t remember any Labour spokesman revealing that they planned to do a big switcheroo after only two years.”
He branded the move as “nothing less than a palace coup” and compared it to North Korean politics.
Johnson then moves on to discuss the talk, at the time, of Labour sharing power with the Liberal Democrats, but fell oddly silent in 2017 when the Tories maintained their government only by way of a £1 billion bung to the DUP.
“Let’s have an election without delay,” he said in 2007, words that have not come out of his mouth since launching his 2019 leadership bid.
The rest of the article deals with issues of the day regarding devolution of powers to Scotland.
We have perhaps never identified with Johnson so much as when he wrote: “It’s at moments like this that I think the political world has gone mad, and I am alone in detecting the gigantic fraud.”
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