Just three years after leading the Conservatives to their biggest election victory in 30 years, Boris Johnson is stepping down as prime minister. The man who dreamed as a child of being 'world king' is now planning his next career move.
His biographer Andrew Gimson says he is not 'the sort of person who would go to the country and do lots of good work for the local church and live a life of blameless obscurity'. Mr Johnson had a highly-paid career in journalism before entering politics and continued to write for newspapers and magazines as he climbed the greasy pole at Westminster - only giving it up days before he became PM.
He had been paid £275,000 a year to write a weekly column for the Daily Telegraph and there could be a media bidding war to secure the former PM's services. He may also be tempted by offers to write his memoirs, a guaranteed earner for former prime ministers. Literary agents have predicted he could be paid 'north of £1m' for a book on his time in power.
But his first post-Downing Street task will be finally to finish his biography of William Shakespeare, which he has been writing, on and off, for the past seven years. Publishers Hodder & Stoughton bought the rights to 'Shakespeare: The Riddle of Genius' in 2015, for a reported £500,000. The book was due out in 2016, but winning the Brexit vote, becoming foreign secretary and then prime minister derailed Mr Johnson's writing schedule.
One way former prime ministers can make a large amount of money is through public speaking. Mr Johnson's predecessor Theresa May has earned £715,000 from making nine speeches in 2022 alone. Mr Johnson's talent for comedy made him a favourite on the after-dinner circuit before he gained power, but he can also turn his hand to more heavyweight fare. In March 2019, he was paid more than £160,000 for giving two speeches.
There has been a lot of speculation about whether Mr Johnson will remain as an MP. It seems unlikely that he will be offered a cabinet job by the next PM, meaning a return to the backbenches. In his final appearance at Prime Minister's Questions, Mr Johnson declared 'mission largely accomplished, for now' before signing-off with 'hasta la vista, baby.' He could only have dropped a heavier hint that he was not finished yet if he had used another catchphrase from the Terminator films: 'I'll be back.'
