By Andrew Gimson
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Jo Johnson is an extraordinary politician.
Except to the local press in his constituency of Orpington, in south-east London, he has never given
an interview. Nor has he revealed himself in promiscuous detail even to the
Orpington News.
In May this year, when Johnson was made head of the Downing Street policy unit, he assured the local press that he would be Orpington’s “eyes and ears” in Number Ten. The phrase was characteristic: he presented himself as someone who would be there on other people’s behalf.
Silence, it has been said, is the wisdom of fools. But Johnson is not a fool. A colleague who reports on banking used to text him for quotes. During his first two years in the Commons, from 2010-12, Johnson was a member of the Public Accounts Committee, and before that he edited the Lex column on the Financial Times, a job once done by Nigel Lawson. Johnson provided good answers to the colleague’s questions, along with the request, “don’t quote me”.