Five people who Boris Johnson could hire to present new briefings

IT was always pretty clear that Boris Johnson didn’t enjoy having to answer questions at Number 10’s Covid-19 briefings.

In general, it’s obvious that he isn’t struck on being held accountable.

Remember when he dodged Andrew Neil’s interview before the 2019 election? How he struggled to answer questions from Keir Starmer without the guffawing of his Tory backbenchers? The fridge incident?

The Prime Minister is not one for transparency or openness. Hence the reported “fears” in the Cabinet over Nicola Sturgeon’s frequent Scottish Government briefings – something she’s been widely praised for throughout the pandemic.

It’s come out that Number 10 wants to capitalise on the “success” of its Covid-19 briefings. Presumably they mean the number of viewers they managed to draw and not the content of the briefings itself, which usually involved half-answered questions, journalists being muted and medical experts getting into trouble for daring to tell the truth.

READ MORE: Boris Johnson seeking spokesperson to front Number 10 briefings

And now the Tory Party is looking to hire a £100k-a-year spokesperson to represent the UK Government at new Trump-style press conferences from the autumn.

The job posting says: “The successful candidate will become a trusted political adviser to the Prime Minister and member of the senior team at Downing Street, reporting into the Prime Minister’s Director of Communications.

“You will represent the Government and the Prime Minister to an audience of millions on a daily basis, across the main broadcast channels and social media, and have the chance to influence and shape public opinion.”

Basically, it’s a new job to do what the Prime Minister is meant to do. But as we have established, Johnson and accountability do not go hand-in-hand.

With the position closing on Friday, August 21, interested parties don’t have too long to get their applications in.

Luckily for them, if there’s anyone who’s not sure they’re quite ready for the role we’ve got some suggestions that could help to reassure them.

Here’s 5 people The Jouker (and a large number of our Facebook followers) think could take on the role.

Ruth Davidson

Ruth Davidson and Boris Johnson met last year. File photo.

According to reports, Johnson is gearing up to announce the former Scottish Tory leader will be one of a number of party figures to be given a peerage this week.

While she once had her differences from Johnson, particularly on the matter of Brexit, in recent weeks she has echoed his views on the UK Government’s latest Holyrood power grab and seems happier than ever to toe the party line.

As long as nobody mentions the old Scottish Conservative effort to stop Johnson becoming PM (remember ‘Operation Arse’?), Davidson should be fine presenting the new briefings. That’s if she has time, what with all the work the House of Lords requires!

Laura Kuenssberg

BBC political editor has been accused of bias many times during her time working for the broadcaster. In 2017 the BBC Trust ruled a November 2015 report by Kuenssberg, about Jeremy Corbyn’s stance on the police’s use of firearms during a Paris terrorist attack, broke impartiality rules.

Throughout the 2019 campaign she was accused of bias through several incidents, and more recently faced criticism for tweeting the journalist who broke the Dominic Cummings/Durham scandal story suggesting her facts were wrong, citing an unnamed government source.

Just this month the BBC’s top reporter was accused of providing analysis of the current independence debate by “parroting Tory attack lines”.

The BBC has always defended Kuenssberg against claims of impartiality.

But given her frequent use of unnamed government sources, a spokesperson position could be a good fit if she fancies a change from her current role.

Dominic Cummings

Let’s be honest – whoever is leading these new Downing Street conferences will just be saying what Cummings wants them to anyway.

Why not cut out the middle man and have the senior adviser do it himself?

The Government moved into unprecedented territory earlier this year when they allowed him to give a press conference in the Rose Garden anyway. Why keep up the pretence?

The only concern could be reading from a teleprompter – the poor man’s eyesight problems are well documented.

Janey Godley

A bit of a different suggestion here but if the UK Government wants to provide entertainment while also getting the severity of public health messaging across, Janey Godley could be the gal to go to.

It’s highly unlikely they’d let her anywhere near the lectern given her stance on Scottish independence, but hey – every press conference would end up going viral, and whatever she says would be a lot less depressing than listening to some Tory mouthpiece tell us how great Brexit is.

Nicola Sturgeon

Again, slightly going off track here. But just a suggestion. If the Tory Government wants to get messages across articulately, the First Minister is the woman for the job.

Her increasing approval ratings throughout the pandemic have shown people respect her no-nonsense approach to getting important information across.

She obviously wouldn’t toe the Tory line and there’s no way she’d stand up for the UK Government on any issue. But it would be a) entertaining to see her try and b) probably a boost to the independence movement, tbh.