Boris Johnson couldn’t be trusted with a tenner, let alone the British economy

The red wine stains on Carrie Symonds’ lovely sofa will be nothing compared with the red ink he’ll have spilled on the public finances and the downgrades in our international credit rating

There are lots of quotes about Boris Johnson. “A human laundry basket” is one my favourites, attributed to anonymous, I believe. “Not the man you want driving you home at the end of the evening” is another, a fairly stark warning in the #MeToo era, as it happens. Max Hastings, his old editor who knows him better than most, says that “he supposes himself to be Winston Churchill, while in reality he is closer to Alan Partridge”.

However, the most damning insight of them all was never meant to be amusing, nor in the public domain. It was delivered to his face by Carrie Symonds: “You just don’t care for anything because you’re spoilt. You have no care for money or anything.”

There’s an indictment for you.

Of course, her remark related to Johnson’s insouciance about domestic bills – hence also the plethora of parking tickets piled up in the back of his old Toyota – but it is perfectly apparent that he takes much the same attitude towards public money. He is the politician of his generation most likely to spend other people’s money to get himself elected, and to wreck the public finances.

We have a situation where John McDonnell can issue press releases condemning Johnson’s tax-cutting, public pay-boosting, debt-inflating promises, and asking how it will all be paid for. He has not yet asked the Tories where the forest of magic money trees has been discovered, but he should. Corbyn’s Labour attacking, with some credibility, the Tories’ profligacy: the world turned upside down. The IFS puts the total cost of Johnson’s bribes/essential investment in infrastructure at £20bn; Labour says it is £57bn. It could be more. Who knows?

To be fair, some of it would qualify as investment that would raise productivity and long-term growth, but by no means all of it. It would need a lot of gilts being issued, and financial markets’ willingness to buy them and continue to have faith in the UK’s economy, post-Brexit.

Much, then, will depend upon who Johnson appoints as a chancellor to replace the vastly underrated Philip Hammond, probably the most skilful chancellor since Sir Geoffrey Howe left No 11 in 1983. Liz Truss, an early favourite, would be Johnson’s creature, owing her meteoric political rise from chief secretary entirely to her unconvincing embrace of hard Brexit. Wheeled out as one of the media pooper-scoopers, she has not always made the best case of the exciting opportunities Brexit presents, mainly because there aren’t many.

More likely, the job will go to The Saj. Sajid Javid would be a more formidable chancellor than Truss, and someone who knows what he wants and how to get it. However, he had a bit of a disappointing run for the leadership, coming fourth with just 34 votes. There is no block of Javites (yet) willing to make trouble for Johnson, and he will be required to make his oath of fealty before he is announced by Johnson. He will, in other words, do as he is told, more or less. Or, if Johnson he wants a complete satrap at HM Treasury, he could send for Sir Michael Fallon.

Of course, the Bank of England will always be able to restrain a wayward government, won’t it? Mark Carney comes to the end of his extended term of office as governor in January of next year – and the search is on for a successor. Diversity consultants have been hired, and there are high hopes for an imaginative appointment. However, again, Johnson will not be wanting someone who doesn’t “believe in Britain” (ie believe in Boris) and will be sniping and whingeing about the Johnson government’s exciting economic programme. No “Remoaners”, then, need apply, and no one shoving up mortgage rates.

I suspect, like the bookies, that Johnson will go for a thoroughly boring, conventional old-school internal candidate, a Bank “lifer”, which would mean Andrew Bailey. He’s not had a great time of it at the Financial Conduct Authority, and would be doubly grateful for the patronage. He’s unlikely to rock the Boris boat. If he does, the famous Johnson charm will turn into a nasty, snarling series of F-worded threats. Bailey would buckle same as The Saj.

The only big money Johnson has ever handled in his personal life concerned his substantial divorce settlements. In his pubic life he has managed to “spaff” much more away. His one-time political opponent, Christian Wolmar, a former Independent journalist, has made what seems a convincing inventory, familiar to those who live in the capital. Johnson wasted public funds on: a ridiculous garden bridge project (£30m); those nostalgic but expensive modern Routemaster “Boris buses” (£300m); the estuary airport plan, aka Boris Island (£10m); a cable car over the Thames (£24m); the Olympic Stadium (£230m); the “new” Crystal Palace (£4.5m), plus a large but uncertain figure for strikes and underprovision of social housing. If Johnson was allowed to do that on a national scale, we would soon be going to the IMF for a crisis loan.

We have, then, been warned, by his campaign promises, by his record, and by eye-witnesses to his financial incontinence.

By the end of a chaotic, crisis-ridden Johnson government, which may come as early as Christmas, the red wine stains on Carrie’s lovely sofa will be as nothing compared with the red ink he’ll have spilled on the public finances and the downgrades in our international credit rating.

Tory members should ask themselves this one question: would you lend Boris Johnson a tenner and expect to ever get it back?