Boris Johnson has wryly compared his new position in David Cameron’s political cabinet to a zero-hours contract as he insisted that it would not interfere with his primary job as mayor of London.
After being appointed on Monday as the first London mayor to serve simultaneously in the cabinet since the role was created in 2000, he claimed that he could also cope with his other jobs as newly elected MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip and a newspaper columnist.
Johnson’s reference to a zero-hours contract may be seen by some as a joke in bad taste.
Ed Miliband, Labour’s fallen leader, said he would end the controversial agreements which give no guaranteed hours. Many such deals also mean staff receive no sick pay or holiday pay but are required to ask permission before working elsewhere.
Asked about his appointment to the political cabinet, Johnson said: “It is a zero-hours contract. It is definitely not a job. I have accepted a role that Miliband wanted to ban.”
Johnson will simultaneously receive his MP’s salary of £67,060 and his mayoral pay of £143,911, as well as a six-figure Daily Telegraph salary.
Cameron said Johnson would focus on his job as mayor, as promised before the general election, but would attend the Tories’ political cabinet, often held at Chequers, where the prime minister sets the political agenda without civil servants.
Commentators have predicted that Johnson will be given a full government post when his term at City Hall ends next year.
Johnson, perching on his bike in New Palace Yard outside Parliament, also joked that his last-minute appeal to Blairite Guardian readers to back the Tories the day before the polls opened may have swung the election. “It was the Guardian what won it,” he said.
