Trouble ahead for Boris Johnson’s TV spokesperson

The old saying is that when the press officer becomes the story they are no longer any use; the person briefing journalists on the prime minister’s behalf on live TV will be the story from day one, John Rentoul writes

Surprisingly effective: White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. Does the PM already have his own version in mind? (AFP/Getty)

I can’t believe it. Boris Johnson is making the same mistake as Tony Blair. Doesn’t he know one of the first laws of politics, which is that you don’t create a powerful new job unless you know who is going to fill it?

The prime minister seems to have advertised for a spokesperson who will speak for him at daily televised media briefings, without having decided in advance who he would like to see in that job.

This is an equivalent folly to Blair legislating for a directly elected mayor of London without knowing who his candidate would be. Blair’s folly was worse in one way, in that he knew which candidate he didn’t want – and yet Ken Livingstone was hugely popular and turned out to be impossible to block.