Boris Johnson’s financial hard luck stories. Not what they seem
According to the Murdoch Times (19th Sept) Boris Johnson is feeling the financial pinch.
His central London residence at 11 Downing St is taxed as a benefit in kind and he has to pay for meals. Apparently he can only afford a cleaner and is not sure if he’ll be able to stretch to a nanny for his current wife and their new baby.
He is after all paid only £150,000 a year (before tax) and has to provide for his numerous children. Prior to becoming PM he was earning £375,000 a year with his Telegraph column and speaking engagements (and his salary as an MP obviously).
A source has told the Times that he is ‘worried’ about his finances.
Unfortunately Murdoch journalism doesn’t stretch to doing any research these days but had the authors of the report done so they would have found that Johnson is perpetually worried about money although he has no actual reason to be.
Sonia Purnell’s biography Just Boris notes that he actually owns two Georgian properties and that promoting Brand Boris over the years has made him a ‘wealthy man’..
Further Purnell notes that the wider Johnson Dynasty owns ‘large tracts of land in Islington, Regent’s Park and Notting Hill as well as Oxfordshire, Somerset and Greece’.
Yet Purnell notes that not just Boris but his sister Rachel are often to be found claiming that they ‘don’t have any money’ when clearly by any benchmark they have a great deal.
It suggests an insecurity in respect of his class position that, for example, Dave Cameron clearly never had.
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