JUST BORIS: A Tale of Blond Ambition (33 page)

Boris also used the ‘sack me!’ ploy with Conrad Black, who called him one Saturday evening to complain about ‘an outrageous’ piece in the
Spectator
. ‘I asked if he were out for dinner. Boris replied, “No, I am at the top of the most dangerous piste in Gstaad staring into the face of death, about to decide, depending on why you are calling me, if my intention is to survive my next run or not.”’ Black laughed and forgot his anger. As Boris himself puts it, he has survived more than once thanks to ‘the blessed sponge of amnesia’ wiping ‘the chalkboard of history.’

Indeed, a few months after Boris was elected in Henley, Black and his wife Barbara Amiel hosted a party in honour of the ‘Boris Phenomenon’ at their 11-bedroom double-fronted mansion in Cottesmore Gardens. Guests included the French ambassador, who
compared the whole event to the cult of Pol Pot. There were cardboard cutouts and pictures of Boris everywhere. His treachery in seeking a Parliamentary seat after promising not to was celebrated at considerable expense by the very people he had betrayed; his unreliability was even the subject of a jolly and specially commissioned song performed at the occasion. Boris took the score without asking, annoying its composer. But in Black’s eyes, Boris seemed to do no wrong: he had his proprietor dangling off his fingertips and Black looked to be enjoying the ride. Sometimes Boris’s thoughtlessness was breathtaking, though.

‘It was the
Spectator
’s 175th birthday and there was a grand dinner to celebrate,’ recalls one female guest. ‘There were drinks first at the
Spectator
offices and the Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith was there, as were all the
Telegraph
grandees such as Algy Cluff and Dan Colson. Conrad Black, this great bear of a man who was Boris’s proprietor arrived, and nobody, including Boris who was busy holding court, took any notice. Conrad looked bewildered and so
I
went over, welcomed him and led him in. No one else was going to.

‘That same year I also went to the
Spectator
summer party and bumped into Conrad on the pavement outside. He had been there for ten minutes as it was so full inside with all Boris’s cronies that he literally couldn’t get in. I felt that Boris didn’t give a damn about the man who had so indulged him. He never for a moment thought, “The most important person here is the owner, not me.”’

Some of the credit for the
Spectator
’s success (without which such lassitude towards Boris would not have been possible) must go to the other key figure in Doughty Street. Los Angeles-born Kimberly Fortier, three years Boris’s senior, was an A-list schmoozer and raven-haired force of nature, as well as the magazine’s publisher. Dan Colson hired her because ‘I figured no one could resist Kimberly Fortier’s efforts to sell an ad. Once she was in someone’s office, there would be no escape. Unquestionably she was one of the most charming and relentless crusaders I have ever met.’ Indeed, she was sexy, flirtatious and did something to middle-aged men. Editor and publisher made a formidable pair.

There are suggestions, though, that Boris was not quite so enamoured. Fortier’s job was to make money for the magazine, so she did not take kindly to having to chase its executives to come into work; she also wanted Boris to attend promotional dinners with advertisers or even people prepared to pay for the privilege. Boris hated what he considered to be ‘meat-trading.’ There were tensions and he would take pleasure in mocking her high falsetto American voice behind her back.

‘Boris’s relationship with Kimberly was fraught,’ confirms Colson. ‘She found him very difficult, but loved the guy at the same time.’ Boris never takes kindly to being bossed about by women and Kimberly could be rather imperial, barking orders such as ‘Boris! Lunch!’ pointing to someone she wanted invited to one of the magazine’s infamous gatherings. He liked to refer to her disparagingly as ‘Little Bo Peep’ because she had small fluffy white dogs and would wear outlandish designer costumes. She, in turn, wished he would focus on his job full-time.

It was a forlorn hope: an even bigger prize was now occupying his thoughts. It was no longer the prospect of one day editing a national newspaper – a job for which the
Spectator
was traditionally seen as the natural training ground. No, he was a Young Man in a Hurry for
political
office – having decided at Oxford that it was his ambition to be in the Cabinet by the age of 35. Boris had clearly overshot yet another deadline, but catching up consumed far more of his time than he let on. No doubt he knew he now had much to offer the Conservative party in its hour of electoral need. No longer a callow youth, he was by 2000 a popular national figure, he had already paid his dues in a hopeless constituency and he was married with four kids. But perhaps most helpfully of all, he was the favoured son of the now-dominant Tory tribe: the Eurosceptics.

Once again, though, other people rather than his own hard graft sealed his fate and landed him a safe seat. And what a seat it was. Centred on a prosperous riverside town, Henley-on-Thames has been held by the Conservatives since 1910. Only 37 miles from Westminster, it can be reached in a speed-limit breaking 60 minutes, yet its ambiance is decidedly unmetropolitan. Henley folk rightly view
their town as a particularly blessed corner of England and they are determined to keep it that way. The outside world can only envy their good fortune each year at the end of June, when crowds descend on the riverbanks to watch the Royal Regatta; the mansions, with lawns rolling down to the water, command some of the highest property prices in the land.

The lordly Michael Heseltine had served as Henley’s distinguished MP for the past 27 years. Clever, glamorous and ambitious, he had risen to the rank of Deputy Prime Minister – and might have become Conservative leader without an ill-timed heart scare in 1997. His political glory reflected on the good burghers of Henley but now he was retiring and the local Conservatives were determined to attract someone of similar calibre to represent them. It was their double good fortune that the replacement was also known for his crop of luxuriant blond hair – even if it did not possess the tamed, swept-back elegance of Heseltine’s. (There were other similarities – both had been President of the Oxford Union; both had worked in magazine publishing; both were intensely ambitious and popular with the party grass roots yet somehow detached from them. Both natural showmen, they were also keen to make serious money. And where Boris had been deaf in childhood, Heseltine had struggled with dyslexia.)

As ever with Boris, although he won through in the end his candidacy was not universally welcomed. His selection prompted more than one party resignation and several allegations of dirty tricks. In fact, the rules were again deliberately broken on his behalf to allow him to stand at all.

It started off well. Boris, famous from
Have I Got News For You
and his
Telegraph
column, was actually invited to put his name forward. ‘My wife said, “Why don’t we invite Boris in as a candidate?”’ recalls Peter Sutherland, president of the Henley branch of the Conservatives. ‘There was the usual thing of a lot of people thinking he was just a buffoon and had no depth but it proved to be entirely wrong.’

A number of Tories were not convinced. Boris failed to show the constituency elders the respect that some of them felt that they and Henley deserved. Maggie Pullen, then president of the South
Oxfordshire Tories (the party’s umbrella organisation in the constituency) was one. ‘We were used to Michael Heseltine, a very serious and visionary politician with a high profile. To find a serious politician to follow him, who would climb to the highest levels, but also with experience outside politics, was obviously going to be a challenge.’

By the time of the deadline, there were over 200 applications for the seat and this was quickly whittled down to around 20. ‘Then Boris’s application came in a week late. It was outrageous,’ says Pullen, ‘but the committee decided to allow it because he had broad appeal with the members.’ Granted such leniency (again), Boris must have quickly realised that he had a captive audience in Henley – a group of largely middle-aged, affluent activists, most of whom were particularly susceptible to his brand of charm. ‘Boris was incredibly funny. He came with no preparation at all and with a torn pocket and grubby shoes,’ Pullen remembers. ‘Everybody thought it was very amusing. We had very good, well-prepared, serious contenders plus a number of local candidates, but of course Boris still got through. But if he hadn’t been Boris, he wouldn’t have stood a chance considering the lack of effort he put in. He was a star and many Conservatives in Henley follow the
Telegraph
, so he had his fans before he even started. And the fact that he was so anti-European helped – or he allowed people to think he was.’

The clear front-runner had been a clever and ambitious lawyer, David Platt, who assiduously researched and cultivated the constituency. Moderate on Europe and agnostic on the Euro, he was seen by many as an asset to a party still reeling from the 1997 election disaster and needing to reach out beyond its narrow core. He was known for being a witty speaker but one also able to argue his case authoritatively. His many admirers considered him certain to join the political fast track as soon as he entered Parliament. Platt was a formidable opponent for Boris and, as he garnered more votes than him until the final stages, the main obstacle to his success. The other notable candidate was the leading woman contender: another resourceful lawyer, Jill Andrew. Boris was up against stiff competition.

Consequently, his success in reaching the final selection committee
shocked some Henley members. ‘His grasp of policies, his grasp of Henley was completely non-existent,’ said one. ‘He hadn’t done any research at all. The others had been down, knew where all the villages were, talked to people – not Boris.’ But others were seduced by his humour. ‘This process is normally so boring it was good to have something that was fun and light,’ said a fan. ‘He made it fun, and that’s why I voted for him.’ In any case, in Henley such an omission – usually fatal to an aspiring MP – proved of little consequence. Not least because of the devoted support of such eminent Conservatives as Baroness Buscombe (who was the following year commissioned by Boris to write in the
Spectator
).

The hot and sticky night of the final selection – Thursday, 13 July 2000 – saw an estimated 200 members piling into a smart new hall in the village of Benson to cast their votes. Even here Boris was hard to pin down. At least once, Buscombe was frantically looking for him among the ranks of Jaguars and Mercedes parked outside. There was a palpable sense of excitement and tension. Conservatives who had never previously attended meetings now turned up in force to see Boris the celebrity in close-up. They outnumbered the regular activists, many of whom were evidently not so star-struck.

Jill Andrew remembers turning up that evening in the anteroom made available for candidates and their partners. ‘Boris had this huge pile of papers on his desk, which he was furiously thumbing through. And he called out, “Jill, what do you think about waste targets?” He was deliberately trying to unnerve me. I think he wanted me to believe that he knew all about waste and that I would be shown up.’ Marina, who knew Platt from her days at Cambridge University, was there too but furiously preparing for a legal case the next day. Only later did she take her place in the front row of the main hall.

‘I was at the door that night,’ recalls Pullen. ‘People were streaming in and saying, “Hello Maggie, we’ve come to vote for Boris.” But I replied: “You haven’t even heard him speak yet.” Their minds were made up.’ Whatever his talents, Boris did not shine as a serious politician that evening; he did excel as a comic act, though. Many laughed uproariously at his bumbling and amusing personal anecdotes while ignoring the lack of political content. Because he was of a
certain class, they looked indulgently on his loose tie and untidily rolled-up shirtsleeves.

‘Boris looked scruffy, his hair needed a cut but it didn’t put people off,’ recalls Lorraine Hillier, then vice-chairman of the Henley branch. ‘Because of his breeding and his Eton background, it was acceptable. If you saw frayed shirts on anyone else, you’d think they’re not very smart but if you’re upper class like Boris, you can get away with it.’ But there were others present who felt alarmed at the prospect of an MP with what they felt was a thoroughly flippant attitude to serious issues, not to mention the state of his dress. In the general mayhem, it is unlikely that Boris noticed, but a handful of Tory members even walked out in disgust.

‘When he was asked a serious question that night about what reforms he would make to the NHS, he told his now-notorious toast story,’ recalls Pullen. ‘It was about how he had eaten his wife’s toast when she was sleeping in hospital after just giving birth, and how disgusted he was that the NHS was unable to provide her with replacement toast when she woke up. He used this as the chief – if not only – reason as to why he wanted to change the health service. Some members found this amusing.’ And it did, as he has admitted himself, achieve ‘one sneaky psychological trick [of] putting the selectors in mind of Marina.’
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‘But you can only compare it with the thoughtful, considered answer given by David Platt, who, of course, wasn’t married at the time,’ continues Pullen. ‘But I know people who wouldn’t vote for Boris again because of that toast story. It became a cause célèbre locally – three Conservatives in my village alone were furious. Several others have told me that in the general election the following year, they spoilt their ballot paper. They couldn’t vote for Boris after that.’ The toast tale was not the only divisive moment that night: another member brought up Guppygate. Astonishingly, this was the only time the issue was raised throughout the selection process. Boris’s defiant response actually drew more sympathy than opprobrium. ‘As it happens I really, honestly, truly don’t think I have any skeletons to speak of in the cupboard,’ he recalls saying that night.
²⁰