Oh dear. Although Lord Ashcroft said he would be pleasantly surprised if Anthony Seldon’s biography of David Cameron offered anything more than ‘a sanitised account’ of his time in Number 10, an excerpt in today’s Mail on Sunday should make interesting reading for Boris Johnson.
In Cameron at 10, Seldon writes of tensions between the leadership hopeful and the Cameron camp, which culminated in the Prime Minister telling Johnson to ‘f—ing shut up’ ahead of the election after he listed all the Old Etonians who had gone on to make it into Number 10:
‘One Number 10 insider says: ‘There was a sense in this building that the PM and Chancellor were getting on taking the difficult decisions while Boris, with his crass bumbling, was lapping it all up and loving twisting the knife.’
After Johnson lists in print all the Old Etonians who have gone on to become prime minister, Cameron sends him a text: ‘The next PM will be Miliband if you don’t f—ing shut up.’
The acclaimed biographer goes on to quote one former Cameron aide as saying ‘there is a big feeling that Boris is a fair-weather friend who strikes poses and can’t be trusted’. While these passages will do little to appease those who claim Johnson has fallen victim to ‘political parlour games’ from senior Tories in a bid to hurt his leadership chances, they can take comfort that Cameron doesn’t get off scot-free.
Pointing out the Old Etonian Prime Minister’s aversion to being viewed as posh, Seldon says that on a trip to the flooded Somerset Levels in 2014, Cameron opted not to wear his green Hunter boots. Out of fear he would look too posh, he chose a pair of brand new black wellies from Asda. Alas, the shiny clean shoes failed to do the trick:
‘That spring, Lynton Crosby learns one of the reasons voters give for saying Cameron is too posh – seeing him on television during the floods wearing a shiny new pair of black wellingtons…’
Still, with Cameron’s nemesis Lord Ashcroft preparing to publish his own rival biography later this year, Mr S suspects some dirt will soon be coming Cameron’s way after all.
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