Remember That Boris Johnson Was Once a Car Reviewer

by Tim Healey

Published: July 8th, 2022

remember that boris johnson was once a car reviewer

One of the bigger pieces of geopolitical news this week involves Boris Johnson. The U.K. prime minister is stepping down.

While reading about how the British media is covering the event, I was reminded that Johnson once reviewed cars.

Apparently very poorly.

That is, when he was even arsed to drive the things. Seems that Johnson often “reviewed” a car by letting it sit in one place for the duration of the loan.

Former GQ editor Dylan Jones, in the Sunday Times, on his former motoring correspondent Boris Johnson… pic.twitter.com/jVf9RhXx8Q

— Jason Groves (@JasonGroves1) April 24, 2022

I don’t bring this up to be political — I just find it an interesting way to ease into the weekend. Especially since Johnson seemed to, uh, not really do the job. It would be less amusing had Johnson been competent.

Hey, if an auto journalist/car reviewer — not all auto journalists review cars, and not all car reviewers are automotive journalists — can eventually climb to the top of his country’s political ladder, maybe that old saw we were told in third grade about how anyone can grow up to be president is true after all.

Or maybe Johnson is just lucky his editors didn’t seem to worry too much about improving his prose and didn’t seem to notice his work ethic, or lack thereof, until he’d moved on.

Either way, after going back and reading some of his old work, I’m going to have to cleanse my palette by Googling a bunch of David E. Davis, John Phillips, and Brock Yates pieces.

[Image: Michael Tubi/Shutterstock.com]

#BorisJohnson #Funny #Journalismism #Politics

Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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8 of 26 comments

Inside Looking Out on Jul 10, 2022

The art of politics is to leave office at rihgt time and let other side to take responsibility for what happens next. Now Democrats should understand that removing Trump from office was not a good idea. Now they stuck with war in Europe, cold war with China, inflation, high gas prices, coming recession and everything else like Carter did in 70s. Nixon resigned, but what came next? Carter who took all responsibily for all failures and then rise of noeconservative movement.

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- SCE to AUX on Jul 11, 2022
  
  "removing Trump from office" Mr Trump removed himself from office by losing the election, and he did many things to earn that loss. As for the potential recession, I fault Mr Biden for extending and expanding the giveaway program that Mr Trump started. Our grandchildren will pay for today's hamburger.
  
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- ToolGuy on Jul 11, 2022
  
  @SCE to AUX There's a theory that says Trump surprised himself when he won. There could be another theory that says that he didn't enjoy the job all that much (at first), but then you have the theory that he grew to like it (maybe too much). I suppose one could theorize that he sabotaged himself when he wanted out (consciously or unconsciously). "Hey Tool -- are you saying the man gets in when he wants to and gets out when he wants to? Or are you saying that he's cursed to forever get exactly the Opposite of what he desires at the time?" "No, I'm not saying that."
  
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- Inside Looking Out on Jul 11, 2022
  
  @SCE to AUX "by losing the election" It wasn't just "losing the election". There was thermo-nuclear war waged by establishment and democrats against Trump. In any case Democrats got what they wished. They won the battle but lost the war.
  
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Dukeisduke on Jul 11, 2022

The reviews sounds horrifically bad, but then, I could never take a car review in a magazine like GQ seriously anyway.

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TheEndlessEnigma on Jul 11, 2022

How does this have anything remotely to do with autos or the auto industry? Surely there are auto newsworthy events that can be reported? The change of the UK Prime Minister isn't in any way newsworthy on an auto news blog. I stopped following this site for 3 years due to the creeping insertion of politics in articles. only recently returned about a month ago. It will not be hard to leave again. Stick to auto related content....this is not that.

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Matt Posky on Jul 12, 2022

Boris repeatedly endorsed adding speed cameras, lowering speed limits, upping congestion charging, and creating bicycle lanes when he was the mayor of London. These are unforgivable sins for someone that proclaimed themselves an automotive enthusiast.

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- Dal20402 on Jul 12, 2022
  
  Fewer than a quarter of households in central London own cars. Why should policy there be centered around cars, privileging a small minority at everyone else's expense? If you want to be a car enthusiast in the UK, you have the entire rest of the country, and central London (or Manchester, where cars are banned from significant areas) is probably not the right place for you.
  
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