When I first met Boris Johnson, I marked him down as unserious. He came to interview me as defence secretary and arrived 45 minutes late. Apparently, experienced political journalist that he was, he had thought the ministry was in Victoria Street, not in Whitehall. He had the decency to look flushed and sweaty, but also gave the impression that I should find his shambolic performance endearing. I pretended to do so.
At about the same time I took a party of journalists to visit the British forces in Bosnia. It was winter and the troops’ accommodation in the field was basic, so we issued a note to the press corps urging them to wear clothing that was warm and robust. We were billeted with the forces in a metal factory. At breakfast we joined the queue of soldiers in their fatigues and boots, rifles over their shoulders, with their mess tins ready to receive the man-size dollops of scrambled egg, sausage and black pudding.
One figure stood out. She wore a tall Cossack hat, whose soft fur swayed like ripe wheat as she moved her lovely head. Her cashmere sweater plunged devastatingly at the neckline. Her legs were swathed in skin-tight moleskin jodhpurs and pirate boots. Petronella Wyatt looked wonderful, better for military morale than a whole concert performance by Gracie Fields. I asked one open-mouthed witness what he thought of her interpretation of the dress code. “Very satisfactory,” he gasped.
Wyatt is also charming, intelligent, knowledgeable and good at writing. If this were France, Johnson’s prestige as a politician would have soared for attracting such a mistress and we might be talking of him as a future leader of his party. Being Britain, his celebrity has increased and his earning potential with it, but his political career is over.
That is only partly because of the affair. Johnson is funny and a sense of humour is a dangerous thing in British politics. Those who are good at telling jokes find it difficult to be taken seriously. Their love of fun is a curse, but an addiction, too. Making people laugh makes you popular but does not bring success at the top of politics. Charles Kennedy has struggled since becoming Liberal Democrat leader to shrug off his reputation as a comic turn. William Hague was definitely too amusing for his own good.
Johnson is talented at many things and cannot bear to sacrifice any of them. Nearly four years ago, when he had entered parliament, I knew he was clever and discovered he had the right ideas (to my mind) about reshaping the Tory party. He wanted to be a future leader and of course he was highly media savvy. I advised him to focus on parliament, stop being funny and resign from editing The Spectator.
I can see why he rejected my suggestions. His journalism and television work have brought him money and fame. Devoting himself instead to mastering a shadow spokesman’s brief would have been tedious and impoverishing. But if he calculated that he could leap from celebrity to leading the party he was wrong. His success had created too many jealousies among MPs and the buffoonery had gone beyond the point of recall.
He seemed to recognise all that when last week he appeared in front of the media dressed in Bermuda shorts and headgear (was it a beanie or a Berlusconi-inspired bandana?) bearing the skull and crossbones. It was the costume of a man headed for I’m a Celebrity rather than No 10.
The Conservatives may sigh at losing one of their few figures who was interesting to the public. But his charisma could not be bottled and sold to boost Tory fortunes. Bumbling Boris is a good television act to set alongside other endearing television creations, such as Dawn French’s vicar and Joanna Lumley’s dipsomaniac, but it is too remote from ordinary voters and could never have translated into anything politically useful.
When Johnson went to Liverpool recently to apologise for an article in The Spectator, many people failed to recognise him. It is remarkable that the Tories’ nearest brush with the cool side of life is represented by Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson of Eton and Balliol. His background puts him scarcely closer to real life than the Prince of Wales’s.
Meanwhile, in the United States an administration that is regarded in Europe as horrifically right-wing was showing British Conservatives how things should be done. President Bush appointed a black woman to be secretary of state. There was no tokenism involved. Dr Condoleezza Rice is said to be almost part of George W’s family. She is the second African-American he has appointed to this revered office which was first held by that great American hero Thomas Jefferson.
The Republicans may be the party of business and of the rich, their members may be anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage, but they have definitively embraced equality of opportunity for America’s ethnic groups. As the United States has galloped forward from segregation (which scarred it as recently as Rice’s childhood in Alabama), the Republicans have moved on enthusiastically in step with the country.
Can the Tories say as much? They are certainly not on course to appoint two black foreign secretaries in a row. While the Labour cabinet includes Paul Boateng and Valerie Amos, the Conservatives still have no MPs from ethnic minorities. That void may suggest two things: that the party has not embraced change as readily as the Republicans and that it remains narrowly based. In truth, the Conservative party has not only too few blacks and Asians, but not enough northerners, women, teachers, nurses and people educated in comprehensive schools.
The Guardian/ICM opinion poll published on Thursday made grim reading for the Tories, placing them eight points behind Labour. In the circumstances it was brave of Lord Saatchi, the party’s co-chairman, to predict that the next election would produce a hung parliament. Delightful though he is, Maurice is a founder member of the Tory Sealed Knot, an organisation devoted to refighting battles from history. Enthusiastic participants dress up as advertising tycoons from the Margaretian era and, with a blood-curdling yell of “tax cuts!”, hurl themselves into a re-enactment of the 1983 general election. Sadly it has nothing to do with the looming contest of 2005.
The opinion poll also revealed that even most Tories could not think of anyone other than Michael Howard who might lead the party in future. For the record, the best bets are David Cameron and George Osborne.
But all we know of them is that they are personable and clever. It is impossible to predict whether they have leadership qualities and how they might change the party.
Even if we did know that, it is not clear whether the party will allow itself to be changed. If the opinion polls proved to be correct and the election were lost, the party would be evenly divided between those wanting top-to-bottom reform and those believing that one last heave with Euroscepticism and tax cuts will inevitably bring them to office.
Howard is the first leader who has not been under constant threat of removal since the days of John Major. His Commons performances are uniformly good. The party will be rightly wary of giving up those solid benefits. If it were to choose another, it would be taking a gamble at least as big as when it elected Hague and Iain Duncan Smith. But then it never took a bigger risk than when it chose Margaret Thatcher nearly 30 years ago.
If the party were a business it would instruct headhunters to find leadership material: “Young, charismatic and clear thinking, amusing but not a comedian, media experienced but not celebrity obsessed, family person, reliable, preferably from a humble background, educated in a state school, must believe in sweeping change in the party. Candidates with origins in the southeast need not apply.”
Luckily one person who fits most of the criteria will enter parliament at the next election. Like Johnson he is a journalist, but unlike him he would never be late for a meeting.
His name is Michael Gove, who long ago wrote a kindly biography of me. He survived that lapse of judgment and climbed the ladder. He has given up the prospect of editing The Times to become a humble backbencher in a party whose fortunes are at a low ebb. That is what I call serious.
