Where’s Boris? UK PM rivals clash over Brexit as front-runner Johnson skips TV debate
- Boris Johnson failed to appear in Sunday night’s TV debate at which he was represented by an empty podium
- Johnson has come under fire from his rivals for giving few interviews and public appearances.
The politicians who are running for British prime minister, to replace the soon-to-be jettisoned Theresa May, appeared together in their first televised debate on Sunday evening – and spent most of their 90 minutes talking about you know what.
Brexit.
But the five Conservative Party contenders in attendance also got in their digs at the man who was the most showy no-show – the front-running Boris Johnson, who was represented at the debate by an empty lectern.
“Where’s Boris?” his five competitors asked.
The current British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said that if Johnson could not handle tussling with five friendly colleagues, how would he possibly handle the wily negotiators in Brussels and the leaders of the European Union to get this better Brexit deal everyone promises?
Brexit, again, being the only point of this entire exercise.
The 54-year-old Eton- and Oxford-educated Johnson, former London mayor and foreign secretary, was presumably at home watching the Channel 4 show on television – perhaps with his new girlfriend, the 31-year-old former Tory aide Carrie Symonds, who according to The Financial Times, “has put him on a diet, imposed order on his distinctive blond hair and kept a tight grip on his circle of advisers”.