Where do the Boris Papers revelations leave ex-PM?

A little over three years after he completed his relatively brief, but action-packed, premiership, Boris Johnson faces more controversy about his behaviour as a public figure.

- SEAN O'GRADY

A cache of documents mostly related to the period since he left office has raised questions of probity in the use of taxpayers' money. The “Boris Papers”, as they’ve been dubbed, should probably be filed, as with so much else concerning the charismatic politician, under “shocking but not surprising”. Other things being equal, they wouldn’t help any chance, albeit remote, of a comeback...

What are these Boris Papers?

They’ve been leaked by an American outfit named Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDS), a little like the famous WikiLeaks of some years ago, but curated rather than “raw”. They comprise some 2GB of data, being 1,820 files - emails, letters, invoices, spreadsheets, speeches and business contracts, some in the public domain.

DDS say they don’t know the provenance of the documents. They raise questions about the “Office of Boris Johnson” (OBJ), a company, and how he may have used public money to subsidise OBJ’s efforts to generate income for Johnson, who has numerous financial commitments. However, the few documents related to his time at No 10 are also a bit problematic.

What’s he been up to?

Making money, as perhaps evidenced by his purchase in 2023 of a fine £4m listed property in Oxfordshire (now extended). His revenue-raising adventures include lobbying Saudi Arabian officials on behalf of a company, which he, Johnson, co-chairs, and a meeting with the morally ambiguous president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, after which he reportedly received more than £220,000 from a hedge fund.