LONDON ¨C As U.K. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson burnishes his euro-skeptic credentials for a possible Conservative Party leadership bid, secret polling has emerged showing he was unpopular with voters and had to be kept out of the public eye during this year¡¯s election campaign, a former government aide has said.
Nick Timothy said the Tories focused their election campaign on Theresa May because their private research showed ¡°nobody in the Cabinet is popular ¡ª keep them away, even Boris.¡± Timothy resigned as May¡¯s co-chief of staff after the results. Going into the election, May was more popular than any of her colleagues individually and the Conservative¡¯s brand overall, the research showed.
Timothy¡¯s comments, in an interview for a forthcoming book on the June vote, emerged after Johnson, the former mayor of London, launched what some observers regarded as a direct attempt to undermine the prime minister. Johnson went out on a limb on Saturday with a 4,000-word essay about his ¡°glorious¡± vision for post-Brexit Britain, in the Tory-supporting Daily Telegraph newspaper.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.