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miro_o
The myth of Johnson's supposed intelligence does need to be addressed. He has a couple of strengths, none of which he has ever exploited to their full potential:
Arising from a weakness, his lack of confidence, he is good at feeling what others around him feel, and he can use this to fake empathy. He himself has little, because he is too busy dealing with his own problems. Anyway, this is usually what impresses people, because they feel understood.
He makes much of his writing, but to date he has written only total rubbish. If he has ability with words beyond putting unusual words into quotes to make them attract attention, he hasn't shown it.
Having throughout his life been parachuted into cushy jobs, the only real difficulty (apart from his personal problems) that he ever encountered (briefly) was being sacked from the Times, but of course it didn't really matter, as he just carried on inventing stories and producing crap 'journalism'.
He could theoretically be a good orator; he has intermittent good comic timing and is occasionally good with jokes--not consistently, though. Both of those are underdeveloped because he hasn't really done any serious work on them. Good public speaking requires discipline (you're going to deliver a lot of speeches), and that's a pronounced weakness of his.
Needless to say, he's always been protected by the media, e.g. when he was a total and utter failure as 'Mayor of London' (a notoriusly unaccountable position in which he could play-act the politician), mostly because of his laziness and incompetence, but also through the various scandals he caused or is associated with, not to mention his conduct at the London Assembly.
The basic essence of his 'political' life is that he's always been a doormat for corrupt interests to traipse over. This is not likely to change.