Boris Johnson is ‘astonishingly elastic with truth’, says Dominic Grieve

Asked by a caller on LBC which of the Labour or Conservative leaders he would vote for her said: “I’m not happy with either which is why I’ve ended up standing as an independent.

“In the case of Jeremy Corbyn, I think the extreme socialist policies which he espouses and indeed his underlying Marxism would be very, very damaging for the country economically and other ways if he were ever elected or ever went anywhere near Downing Street.”

He promised that as an MP he would “do nothing to facilitate [Corbyn’s] arrival there”.

But asked if he prefers Boris Johnson, Grieve said: “But I do find Boris Johnson extremely troubling as an individual. I can’t escape the fact that my own assessment of him is that he is a politician who I simply cannot trust. He is somebody who is astonishingly elastic with truth.”

Asked if Corbyn is more trustworthy than Johnson, Grieve said: “I think Jeremy Corbyn’s policies are ghastly and therefore would be massively damaging.

“But I have to say, do I find Jeremy Corbyn as a private individual somebody who is sincere in beliefs which I happen to disagree with? Yes I do.

“Whereas I have to say that I find Boris Johnson as an individual who I regard as wholly insincere, who is indeed willing to say almost anything to anybody if he thinks it’s going to be at his advantage at any given moment.

“I’ve never experienced a politician in modern British history who is so elastic with truth. And also willing to resort to telling whopping lies against other people if he thinks it suits him and that really worries me.”

Grieve said as a former Conservative, he always felt the party at least attempted to maintain its integrity until now.

But Johnson, he said, is “somebody who has no integrity at all.”