Boris Johnson is a real character.
Like New York mayors Fiorello Laguardia or Ed Koch, he is a picturesque and extravagant political figure.
He was the editor of The Spectator and he writes very well.
So, The Daily Telegraph, owner also of The Spectator, decided to pay him 250,000 GBP a year for a weekly column in the paper.
He gives 50,000 GBP to charities, so 50 columns a year means that he really makes around of 4,000 GBP per column.
I don’t know how much other leading British or American columnists charge for their columns, but it doesn’t seem like a big deal to me.
And perhaps he is right, and this really is what he called (watch here the video) just “chicken feed”.
The real problem here is not what he makes as a columnist (as mayor he gets 140,000 GBP a year) but how you can cover local politics if the mayor is on your payroll.
That’s the big issue.
A London newspaper cannot pay anything to the mayor of the city.
Period.
Tags: Boris Johnson, Ed Koch, Fiorello Laguardia, London Maor, New York, THE DAILY TELEGRAPH, The Spectator, columnists