One of the most influential figures in the Tory party says that Boris Johnson is best understood as a character out of Shakespeare or Chesterton
We have been edging in recent decades ever closer to having our first Catholic prime minister since the Reformation. In the Noughties, both the main opposition parties had Catholic leaders in Iain Duncan Smith and Charles Kennedy, while Prime Minister Tony Blair waited but a short time after leaving office to become a Catholic. His delay, one can only presume, was because this most PR savvy of premiers feared some sort of backlash if he did it while in situ in Downing Street.
Now we do have a Catholic prime minister – but his religion has prompted very little discussion. Even Paul Goodman – a Catholic, a former MP, two-time colleague of Boris Johnson’s (on the Commons benches and before that when they worked together at The Daily Telegraph) and now editor of the hugely influential grassroots Conservative Home blog (credited by some with bringing down Theresa May’s premiership) – is initially reluctant to grasp the nettle as we meet in the shadow of the Palace of Westminster.
