The Boris articles

I read with great amusement Boris's "pro-remain" draft which was described today in the Sunday Times, and had some fun noting the contrasts with things he has said since.

But although there are plenty of valid reason to criticise Boris Johnson for things he said and did during the EU referendum campaign, the fact that he wrote draft newspaper articles for each side of the argument really isn't one of them.

If you are trying to decide which of two courses of action is the best one, I can think of far worse ways to try to make up your mind, than to sit down and write an article putting the argument for each course of action and then decide which one you think makes the strongest case.

And that is equally true if you are trying to pick the best course of action for your country, not just for yourself.

Now of course, I thought his arguments for Remain for stronger than his arguments for Leave, even though I also thought they could be stronger still - but that is exactly what you would expect me to think and does not prove in any way that Boris didn't believe the Leave arguments were stronger.

The only really silly thing Boris Johnson did in preparing both pro-Remain and pro-Leave newspaper articles while he was trying to decide which way to go, was that after opting for Leave he allowed the situation to arise in which The Sunday Times' political editor Tim Shipman could get hold of his pro-Remain article and publish it!

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