Boris Johnson’s art of war

‘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.’

Historians of the Tory party may be curious to know why this tactic worked in the Oxford Union, but not in the Crewe & Nantwich by-election or the race for London Mayor.