Tory chancer Boris Johnson has built a career on posing as both a right-wing Thatcherite ideologue and a bumbling maverick "character."
His willingness to endure - provoke even - public ridicule by looking like an unmade bed, getting himself into a number of scrapes, sounding like a parody of Billy Bunter and volunteering for embarrassing photo-ops means that he is rarely out of the headlines.
This suits him well since his basic intention is to replace his "mate" David Cameron in 10 Downing Street.
A Vatican photo-op, a hard-right donor and a rhetoric of mass deportations reveal how appeals to ‘Christian values’ are being reshaped by Reform and Tory MPs, says SOLOMON HUGHES
ALAN MORRISON celebrates life and work of the late Tony Harrison, 1937-2025
Following the resignation of Nepali Prime Minister KP Oli amid mass youth-driven protests, different narratives have circulated which simplify and misrepresent the complexities and reality on the ground in Nepal at the roots of this crisis, argue VIJAY PRASHAD and ATUL CHANDRA
The EIS president who defended Marxist politics in the 1980s fought Thatcherite educational policies while organising Teachers for Peace rallies and ensuring Morning Star circulation in Scotland’s pit villages and factories, writes JOHN FOSTER


