Johnson hails Titan ‘heroes’ and hits out at ‘lefties’ who have questioned trip
oris Johnson used his second Daily Mail column to pay tribute to the “heroes” who died in the Titan submersible disaster and lash out at “lefties” who have questioned the expensive expedition.
The former prime minister’s appointment as a columnist for the newspaper was ruled a “clear breach” of ministerial rules by Whitehall’s anti-corruption watchdog last week.
In a 1,200-word article on Friday, Mr Johnson wrote: “(Hamish) Harding and his friends died in a cause — pushing out the frontiers of human knowledge and experience — that is typically British, and that fills me with pride.”
Every great advance must inevitably involve experiment, and equipment that can seem, in retrospect, dangerously inadequate
He hit out at the “Leftie Twittersphere” he said was “awash with criticism” about the voyage to the wreckage of the Titanic before the news of the deadly implosion.
He singled out remarks by commentator Ash Sarkar, who had tweeted: “If the super-rich can spend £250,000 on vanity jaunts 2.4 miles beneath the ocean then they’re not being taxed enough. We get well-funded public services, they get saved from the consequences of their own hubris. What’s not to like?”
In response, Mr Johnson wrote in his column: “Well, Ash, without in any way minimising the migrants’ tragedy, let me tell you how I feel about those on the Titanic expedition. I think they are heroes.”
He suggested there is no way of knowing whether the undersea world is full of riches such as rare metals “if we don’t look”.
“That is why this mission was so important, and should be valued by Left-wingers as well as everyone else. Yes, there were risks, and warnings. But every great advance must inevitably involve experiment, and equipment that can seem, in retrospect, dangerously inadequate.
“Hamish Harding and his fellows were trying to take a new step for humanity, to popularise undersea travel, to democratise the ocean floor. They knew the dangers.”
The Daily Mail column gives Mr Johnson a platform to take shots at Prime Minister Rishi Sunak with whom he has been publicly clashing, although he has so far held back, using his first one to detail how a weight-loss drug did not work well for him.
Mr Johnson landed the job a day after he became the first former prime minister to be found to have lied to the Commons, in the publication of the damning report into his partygate denials.
But the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba) said the ex-premier had given only 30 minutes notice before his new newspaper work was made public.
The watchdog, chaired by Tory peer Lord Eric Pickles, was clear that Mr Johnson’s last-minute declaration was a breach of the rules.
A spokeswoman said: “The ministerial code states that ministers must ensure that no new appointments are announced, or taken up, before the committee has been able to provide its advice.”
Acoba wrote to him last week demanding an explanation and is due to publish the correspondence.