Sometimes, political scandals are important for what they reveal about character. The row over the refurbishment of the Downing Street flat seems to me one such case. Boris for many years earned a quarter of a million pounds a year for his Telegraph column, on top of his various other jobs. He can be expected to earn pretty well on leaving office, as Prime Ministers usually do.
Even with his complex private life and considerable outgoings, it seems unlikely to me that having set his heart on a £58,000 refurbishment of his living quarters he couldn’t one way or another lay hands on the dough to pay for it. What’s striking is that he seems to have risked his reputation and career to avoid doing so.
I suspect him, in other words, of being as tight as two coats of paint. This is a condition which, in those so afflicted, runs deep. A story from some years ago tells the same story on a smaller scale. When Boris was mayor, colleagues at the Daily Telegraph organised a dinner at a London club in honour of a senior colleague (Bill Deedes, I think, though it may have been Nick Garland). Boris, to his credit, took time out from his mayoral duties to come along, was as usual conviviality itself, and a very good time was had by all of us.
But afterwards, when the time came for everyone to pony up their share of the bill — which was, as I recall, something of the order of £40 — Boris was the only laggard in doing so. The colleague who organised the event contacted him repeatedly to remind him — he was, after all, a busy man and it was an easy thing to overlook. But, long story short, no cheque was forthcoming and the reminders became a bit shirtier.
Eventually, my colleague contacted not Boris but his mayoral right-hand man (then, I think, Guto Harri) and made clear that if the account wasn’t settled it would be quite possible for him to recoup the sum in another way: by selling the story to the Londoner’s Diary. Only then did Boris remember to write a cheque.
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