Lord Moore, Boris Johnson has announced his retirement.

Does that make you sad?

Jochen Buchsteiner

Political correspondent in London.

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Yes, it's sad, not entirely surprising, but sad.

it's a loss

It is undoubtedly his fault as well.

what else?

covid.

It's hard to survive a pandemic politically when people are so angry about so many things.

But there is also a very strong "Remainers" establishment that respects neither the Brexit referendum nor the election result and has tried by all means to eliminate Boris Johnson.

It was spearheaded by the BBC, which was very effective.

You see Johnson as a victim of a witch hunt?

It's not easy to divide the blame.

He made a lot of mistakes himself.

Half of the people wanted to get rid of the government, which of course is normal in our democracy.

But the Johnson case was different than usual, also because of the role that (Johnson's former chief adviser) Dominic Cummings played.

Cummings may have turned his back on his boss much earlier than is known.

He took sensitive information and photos from Downing Street with the intention of using them against Boris.

It's very difficult to deal with someone you've been close to who suddenly wants to destroy you.

You know Johnson well.

You were his superior for a long time, first at the Telegraph, then at the Spectator.

Yes, and if he hadn't already been there I would have hired him because he was an extremely good journalist.

Despite distorting facts and making up quotes?

Johnson was certainly no ordinary reporter.

He broke rules that should be followed.

But as an EU correspondent, he understood that reporting from Brussels was an enormous story – which all the other journalists either didn't understand or didn't say.

From the EU's point of view, it was legitimate, but in truth it was an enormous story: that the EU was then preparing to usurp our national independence.

Boris dramatized it extremely well.

And he was right to see this trend.

And that's more important than the facts?

Not more important.

But Boris had the key fact on the roll, so to speak.

As journalists we know that the facts have to be right, but there is also such a thing as THE story.

And Boris caught the big story in Brussels before anyone else in Britain - and told it brilliantly.

It wasn't that a few facts were wrong that caused such a stir, although some were, I fear, really wrong.

It was the fundamental point of his writing, which they disliked, that an entire continent should be governed from Brussels.

Boris was great and I fully defend him.

What is Johnson like as a person?

Sociable, fun and friendly, but also lonely and depressed.

Of course, this is not uncommon for public figures.

He's not pompous and he treats everyone equally.

Johnson can be extremely brave, but he's also a coward at times.

When someone in government worked him hard, he gave in.

So it was hard to pin him down, and maybe that's the gist: he hates being pinned down.

This makes it difficult for friends and colleagues to deal with him.