Boris
Johnson, editor of The Spectator, has hinted that he will quit his post
at the magazine in order to take a shadow cabinet job if David Cameron
wins the Conservative leadership race.
On BBC Radio’s Desert
Island Discs at the weekend, he told presenter Sue Lawley that he had
realised that combining politics with his role as magazine editor was
“ludicrous”.
He added: “I think I have successfully ridden two
horses for quite a long time, but I had to admit there have been
moments when the distance between the two horses has grown terrifyingly
wide, and I did momentarily come off.”
Johnson’s early endorsement of Cameron is seen as likely to give him a good chance of a place in the shadow cabinet.
Related
Spectator publisher Andrew Neil told The Independent on Sunday that he had been “half expecting” the news.
He
added: “I am on record as saying that I believe that being an editor is
incompatible with being in the Shadow Cabinet. I have said as muchto
Boris and he agrees.”
Johnson’s decision could explain recent
rumours that he is to be replaced at The Spectator by Tatler editor
Geordie Grieg, although this has been denied by Johnson.
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