Fancy a selfie with Boris Johnson? That'll be £121, please

It is no secret that Boris Johnson has made an awful lot of money since leaving Parliament. Having jumped as an MP before he was pushed, the former prime minister is no longer obliged to report his earnings, but is not thought to be on his uppers.

His weekly Daily Mail column, despite frustrating his editors by rarely, if ever, delivering a news line, is thought to bring in the thick end of seven figures. His advance for his account of his time in office, Unleashed, was widely reported as paying him a £510,000 advance before selling a single copy (although was outsold by Rory Stewart’s). And the man who once told a room of north-eastern business leaders why they should be visiting a Peppa Pig-themed amusement park in Hampshire can still demand upwards of £250,000 to deliver speeches to cryptocurrency investors, insurers and investment bankers across the anglophone world.

So it’s bewildering that he should now be demanding £121.25 – for a selfie!

Johnson is giving a live show at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall on September 2 with tickets starting at £49 plus booking fee, rising to £75 for top-tier seats. The event page praises the ex-Tory leader for “enacting the will of the British people” over Brexit (in Scotland, which voted 62% for Remain), and unleashing a “visionary agenda of domestic policy reform” (in Scotland, to which domestic policy is largely devolved).

The advert also hails Johnson as the “pre-eminent global leader in the effort to support Ukraine in its fight against Russian invasion” less than two weeks after he presciently penned a column headlined “This is the moment to shock Putin with strength of our resolve – and if anyone can do that, it’s Donald J Trump”.

After all that, who wouldn’t want a keepsake snap with this most statesmanlike of figures? Just an extra £110 (on top of the ticket price) plus another £11.25 booking fee – don’t all rush at once!