The first compassionate conservative

Toby Young

25 April 2009

Toby Young on how his old pal rebranded himself in order to become President of the Oxford Union

‘The thing about Boris is that he really, really wants to be President,’ said an Old Etonian contemporary of his. This was back in 1984 when we were all at Oxford together.

‘Yes, I know,’ I replied. ‘He’s already announced his candidacy.’

‘I don’t mean President of the Union,’ he said. ‘I mean President of the United States.’

Could that possibly be true? Boris was born in New York in 1964 so he isn’t disqualified on those grounds. But wasn’t it a tad ambitious to think he could become President of the United States? I checked with his sister, Rachel, who was then a fresher at New College. As expected, she pooh-poohed the idea. ‘Last time I checked he wanted to be World King,’ she said.

Be that as it may, he still had to conquer the Oxford Union — and his first attempt wasn’t successful. He ran in Michaelmas term of 1984 and was soundly defeated by Neil Sherlock. There were several factors working against him. For one thing, Boris was at Balliol, a left-wing college with only a handful of Union members, whereas Sherlock was at Christ Church, which commanded a huge voting block. In addition, Sherlock was essentially a Liberal, whereas Boris had the backing of a political machine known as ‘the Establishment’ — High Tory and, therefore, less appealing to the Union’s broad-based membership. Finally, Boris was an Old Etonian, whereas Sherlock was the product of a state school. This enabled Sherlock’s campaign manager, Tim Hames, to paint Boris as a ‘rah’.

‘I ran a campaign of unremitting class warfare against him,’ says Hames. ‘If I threw a punch that landed above the belt that was entirely unintentional.’

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The Laughing Cavalier

April 25th, 2009 11:53am Report this comment

Some time ago hames wrote an account of his campaign tactics in The Times. He seemed to be glorifying in the fact that his behaviour was that of a frightful little shit.

lauriemacdonell-sanchez

April 29th, 2009 3:55pm Report this comment

‘The terrible art of the candidate is to coddle the self-deception of the stooge.’ Ever was it thus, & as recently as 11/08 (a new date that will live on in infamy) it worked like magic here in the States, when the bone-headed mob division of the electorate galloped, snout-to-rump, over the cliff & headlong into CHANGE-land, the NWO Socialist paradise that's about to nationalize its banking sector, among other dreadful CHANGEs.

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