Boris Johnson stands to make £5m a year after No 10, say experts
Boris Johnson could make more than £5m a year after he leaves Downing Street, experts have estimated.
The figure will be welcome news to a prime minister who is said to regularly complain to friends that he is hard up, citing his second divorce, several children and his reduced income since entering No 10.
In fact, Johnson’s £155,376 salary puts him in the top 1% of UK earners. His housing, transport and a large part of his living costs are covered by the taxpayer.
Regardless of whether his financial straits are real or imagined, there are two certainties, says Tom Bower, one of Johnson’s biographers: that he is hopeless with money and that he will have no problem making lots of it after he leaves office.
“It’s because he’s such a bad money manager that he got himself into that ridiculous situation with the refurbishment of his Downing Street flat,” said Bower. “After that debacle, the financiers who fund the Tory party took him to one side and told him he didn’t need to worry about money; that his future earnings were guaranteed to be so strong that he could take out whatever loans he needed at very low rates.”
Giles Edwards spoke to many former world leaders about their lives after leaving office for his book The Ex Men. He agrees that Johnson’s post-Downing Street earning potential is incredibly strong. “Former leaders are offered everything imaginable for fees that can be nothing short of extravagant,” he said. Johnson’s memoirs alone are guaranteed to earn him in the region of £1m, Edwards estimates.
In Johnson’s backbench days, when he was earning about £830,000 for newspaper columns, books, speeches and TV appearances, he referred to the £250,000 he received for his Daily Telegraph column as “chicken feed”.
But as
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