(Bloomberg) -- There are few figures in British politics quite as divisive as Boris Johnson, who is staking a claim to succeed Theresa May as leader of the Conservatives and prime minister. Many in his own party are openly critical.
For the pro-Brexit flank of the party, he’s their last chance to get Brexit done right. But for Tory europhiles like Chris Patten he’s a “disaster.”
The Tory grandee, a former cabinet minister and last governor of Hong Kong, used candid language to describe Johnson’s qualifications for the top job and his track record as foreign minister.
“He’s lied his way through life, he’s lied his way through politics, he’s a huckster with a degree of charm to which I am immune,” Patten said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in London. “As well as being mendacious he’s incompetent.”
But Patten also thinks that Johnson has a good chance of becoming prime minister: “I think he would be a very, very bad choice indeed but I suspect it may well happen.”
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