Boris Johnson’s friends should help him “escape the hell of Downing Street” by urging him to quit as prime minister, the New Statesman has said.
The Tory leader endured a woeful month in November, topped off by a CBI speech that left some journalists asking about his wellbeing.
Courting business chiefs, the PM enthused about a visit to Peppa Pig World and pretended to be a speeding car during his occasionally baffling speech.
He also made a passing comparison between himself and Moses and quoted Lenin, much to the amusement of people on social media.
According to Jonn Elledge, his recent antics could stem from the fact that he is a man who is “not contented with his lot”.
Rumours that he is struggling to get by on his £157,000 salary, complaints about Downing Street’s lack of household staff and reports that governing is “getting in the way of finishing his book on Shakespeare” could be signs that he “doesn’t want to do the job at all.”
“It forces him to live in a cramped house filled with underlings in suits. It prevents him from doing the work he wants to do. It means people expect him to care,” Elledge says.
Calling to the PM’s friends to put him out of his pain, he concludes that not being in the job is surely the best thing for him.
“He can toddle off into the sunset and live the life he so clearly yearns for once again, with all of the attention but none of the responsibility.”
Related: Full Fact reprimands the Express for ‘vastly’ overstating impact of UK trade deals