Former prime minister Boris Johnson has been named as a columnist for the Daily Mail newspaper, in a return to a journalistic career where he has in the past written for several leading titles in the UK and been sacked from one for making up a quote.

Johnson, 58, who stood down as an MP last week over an inquiry which found him guilty of deliberately misleading parliament over parties during COVID-19 lockdowns, will write for the Daily Mail every Saturday, the newspaper said.

“Whether you’re a Boris fan or not, it’s going to be required reading – both in Westminster and for millions across the world,” the paper said.

Since resigning as prime minister last year, Johnson, one of the United Kingdom’s best known and most divisive politicians, has gone on to earn millions of pounds from speaking tours.

His return to journalism is expected to be a lucrative new job and offers the former leader a vehicle in one of the UK’s most widely-read right-leaning newspapers to express his views on the government and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

He resigned as an MP with a blistering attack on a parliamentary committee which ruled he had deliberately misled parliament with his accounts of rule-breaking parties.

Parliament will decide whether to approve the committee’s conclusions on Monday.

He also used his statement to take a swipe at Sunak, saying the country needed a “properly Conservative government” that would reduce business and personal taxes.

Johnson, no stranger to scandal, started his working life in journalism but was sacked by the Times newspaper for making up a quote.

He went on to have a career at the Daily Telegraph, where as a Brussels correspondent he lambasted the European Union in vivid if not always accurate prose.

He later pursued parallel media and political careers as editor of the Spectator magazine and as a member of parliament, and before becoming prime minister wrote a regular column for the Daily Telegraph.

That column often saw him criticised for his views – he was accused of Islamophobia when he said Muslim women who wear burqas looked like letter boxes or bank robbers.

— AAP