Question Time guest tries to praise Boris Johnson by comparing him to a 'con man'

A Question Time guest bizarrely praised Boris Johnson by calling him a "con man", which we didn't know was a compliment.

Tim Stanley, a Telegraph journalist said he enjoyed watching Johnson "get away with it" and likened him to a film character in comments that people have since said were pretty strange.

He said: "Boris Johnson is a phenomenon. I'm amongst a minority who rather likes him actually and he reminds me of a character in an Ocean's Eleven films where technically he may well be a con man and he might be the bad guy, but you want to see if he gets away with it..."

Fiona Bruce interrupted saying: "Are you saying he's like George Clooney?"

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But an undeterred Stanley continued: "And how he did it and part of me still thinks he might get away with it, he might pull off one more great con."

His comments came in response to an audience question about whether Johnson was damaging the Tory party to save his own reputation. It, in turn, came in the wake of mass resignations of Downing Street staff in response to the continued fallout of the Partygate scandal and because of Johnson's false accusation that leader of the opposition Keir Starmer failed to prosecute Jimmy Savile when he was in charge of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

People found the praise rather embarrassing:

To be honest, this is the best praise he's received all week. And it looks like there are a few spots opening up in Downing Street so if Stanley fancies working for Johnson's comms department maybe he'll have a good chance.

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