JUST BORIS: A Tale of Blond Ambition (65 page)

Other populist interventions included accusing the Government of not standing up for the British company BP in the oil spillage saga in the US (on BBC Radio 4’s
Today
programme), through calling for a rethink of the abolition of the Education Maintenance Allowance for 16- to 19-year-olds (BBC TV’s
Question Time
) to warning against sabrerattling over the crisis in Libya and bailing out Greece for a second time (both in his
Telegraph
column). As a journalist and Mayor Boris had no need of the floor of the House of Commons – he was making increasingly expert use of his privileged access to, and command of, the media to make his voice heard.

When he also attacked Ken Clarke, the Conservative justice secretary (and a man he himself once backed for leader) over plans to halve jail terms in return for early guilty pleas, there were more than stirrings of interest on his party’s back benches. His comments in the
Sun
newspaper in June 2011 that ‘soft is the perfect way to enjoy French cheese, but not how we should approach punishing criminals’ not only signified his close relationship with the paper, it also earned him a loud cheer for supporting ‘Conservative values’ from MPs alarmed at what they perceived to be the touchy-feely influences of their Lib-Dem partners. The response will have been exactly as Boris
hoped. Just as his predecessor Ken had marketed a ‘real Labour’ vision in defiance of ‘phony’ Tony Blair, he himself was on track to become the ‘real Tory’ full-blooded alternative to coalition Cameron.

Yet for all Boris’s clever posturing, the fact remains that while he is still in Downing Street, David Cameron holds all the aces in terms of real power. In the lead-up to the mayoral elections of May 2012, Boris will in any case eventually have to re-focus his attacks on his old Labour adversary, the wily old King Newt himself, Ken Livingstone. Will Boris be able to sustain his sparkling electoral record in London? And, even more interestingly, will he want to?

The mayoral election of May 2012 will again pitch into the ring two of Britain’s most charismatic political showmen – and mark yet another turning point in Boris Johnson’s extraordinary career. The first Boris v. Ken contest in 2008 made great theatre, proving that personality politics could rival
The X Factor
for drama, entertainment and even voter participation. But as the opposing teams limbered up for the 2012 rematch there was just a faint whiff of a foregone conclusion; a sense that the task of extracting a popular celebrity from his perch in City Hall might prove too exacting for a figure in his late sixties with the air of yesterday’s man. There were some around Ken Livingstone who sensed that he was not ‘really up for it this time,’ that an apparent ‘grumpiness’ and media invisibility early in the contest reflected a lack of real hunger for his old crown. Even when Ken
was
talking publicly about Boris’s faults or failings, it was not altogether clear that he was being heard. In the Labour camp, the growing fear during the turbulent summer months of 2011 was that, barring disaster, Boris would walk it.

That is not to say that Ken does not remain a formidable operator, who will inevitably sniff out chinks in Boris’s armour as the election draws closer. Or that the unpredictable fall-out from the phone-hacking scandal and the resulting upheavals at Scotland Yard will not in some way affect the mayoral contest, possibly to Ken’s advantage. But Tory thinkers believe that Boris has once again struck lucky; that Labour, distracted by the 2010 leadership race, made a fatal error in
selecting as its candidate a politician with his own questions to answer. Ken, who for years outperformed his party in London, was by June 2011 trailing it by 10 points. In fact, a YouGov/
New Statesman
poll that month found that one in five
Labour
voters in the capital planned to vote for Boris.
¹
Overall, the Mayor was polling at 48 per cent, seven points ahead of Ken and 16 points over his own party. Once again Boris was proving his invaluable – and possibly unique – cross-party appeal in Left-leaning London.

Yet this cheering endorsement came at a time when the Mayor seemed to have outgrown his political playpen, with his attention more focussed on events national and international rather than London local. In one of those sporadic outbursts of Boris-mania, he was once again being tipped by serious commentators to become the next prime minister. Indeed, there seemed to be a growing possibility that an election that neither party leader could afford to lose would be fought by two candidates whose hearts were not entirely in it.

It was therefore significant that Boris and Marina were invited to dinner with David and Samantha Cameron in their Downing Street flat, with its chic, sleek new kitchen and the yellow velour sofa on which Sam Cam and Michelle Obama were famously photographed, one spring evening in May 2011. The event was arranged in part to emphasise Cameron and Boris’s ‘easy relationship’ after years of speculation about serious friction (although Boris continues to be somewhat dismissive of Cameron’s deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, and according to senior Tories, Samantha Cameron is said to disapprove of Boris because of his philandering). In some ways the two men
are
close: they text each other frequently and Boris often breaks off in City Hall meetings to declare, ‘Wait! I’m going to text Dave about this!’ They meet, but not on a formally regular basis, and Cameron is said merely to shrug his shoulders at news of Boris’s latest antics with a rhetorical ‘oh, has he?’ One Downing Street source claims Cameron is so relaxed about the Mayor, that ‘in fact he rarely mentions him. Contrary to popular perception, the Prime Minister is not obsessed with Boris.’

Even so, Cameron’s people concede that media reports on the rivalry have ‘amplified’ any real-life tensions by making their
respective entourages suspicious of each other. Although nothing on the scale of Blair and Brown, insiders say papers are not always distributed between the two, information is sometimes held back and the atmosphere permeated by a certain distrust. So, with a year to go until the next mayoral elections, the word was out that the Downing Street dinner reflected the Prime Minister’s full square support of Boris’s bid for a second term in office.

For Cameron, a Boris victory in 2012 would be a double prize. It would, of course, be a huge boost to his party in that difficult mid-term period but perhaps equally important, it would effectively box in the country’s most popular Tory until the next mayoral election in 2016. Jumping ship before then to fight a Commons seat would trigger a mid-term mayoral race, costing taxpayers around £12 million; an extra burden difficult for Boris to justify in times of austerity when the sole purpose would so clearly be the advancement of his own national ambitions. In any case, in this age of younger, healthier MPs by-elections come up less often. Perhaps Boris’s younger brother Jo might be persuaded to give up his seat in Orpington for the Johnson dynasty’s greater good. On current form, though, this seems unlikely. And so to the question, ‘how do you solve a problem like Boris?’, the Prime Minister had, it seems, found the perfect answer – unlike previous party leaders. It’s conceivable, even likely, that Cameron wants a Boris victory in 2012 more than the man himself.

And it’s largely for these reasons that, as a source close to the Prime Minister puts it, ‘Boris is always treated as a very privileged person.’ As we have already seen, he did well out of George Osborne’s 2010 spending review when other departments suffered budgetary slash and burn. Extra powers have also been given to the mayoralty – although not yet as many as Boris would like. (Cameron likes to tell a story about one meeting on this subject when Boris launched himself over the table to try and grab the Prime Minister’s briefing papers, which he refused to let him have, leading to an undignified, albeit somewhat symbolic tug o’war.)

Boris is also afforded leeway in other areas – to keep him both tolerably happy and, of course, electable. ‘Like Ken with Labour, Boris comes out against the government from time to time,’ says a senior
Downing Street source with knowing understatement. ‘But it’s part of his
job
to be distinct; it’s no use if mayors are automatons.’ Indeed, it seems Downing Street almost actively encourages such public disagreements, regarding them as electoral bling useful for winning over metropolitan voters. The Cameroons, like so many others in Boris’s life, appear prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to accommodate his whims.

In contrast, he rarely returns that loyalty. When Sir Paul Stephenson and John Yates resigned from the Met in July 2011 over allegations about their links to News International, the circumstances prompted comparisons with the Prime Minister’s decision to hire Andy Coulson as his Director of Communications, but Boris was noticeably unforthcoming in his support for Cameron. Indeed, although Downing Street announced that Boris would be putting out a formally supportive statement for the Prime Minister (who was away in Africa at the time) it failed to materialise. His spokesman said merely that the Mayor thought the Prime Minister a ‘top guy who has to make some very difficult decisions. It is totally mischievous to suggest that he doesn’t fully support him.’
²

Earlier, Boris had dismayed those campaigning – like Cameron – against the Alternative Vote electoral system in the April 2011 referendum by refusing to take a more active role. ‘We pleaded with him to do some high-profile events because we knew it would make a difference,’ recalls one senior Tory official. ‘But our pleas fell on deaf ears – he didn’t see it as in his own interests.’ There were even suggestions that Boris had toyed with the potentially explosive idea of coming out for the other side in support of AV before he was firmly reined in by Cameron’s people on the No Campaign.

As always, there is also the question of trust – a perception that he does not ‘bat for the team’. In another incident, a private conversation between Boris and senior Tory Oliver Letwin – in which the Cabinet minister suggested he did not wish to see more people from Sheffield flying away on ‘cheap holidays’ – somehow ended up splashed all over the newspapers. It caused huge embarrassment for Letwin and damaged the Government’s efforts to be seen to be ‘all in this together.’

Meanwhile, Boris – who had declared himself ‘scandalised’ by the sentiments – once again managed to present himself as the champion of the Ryanair classes, if not the most loyal of colleagues. ‘That is what Boris is like,’ explains the same Downing Street source. ‘I don’t think he’s malicious, or that it’s part of a concerted plan – he’s created that environment round himself in which different rules apply from the rest of us. People tend to like maverick politicians, like Ken or Boris. Before the mayorship, there was no outlet for them but now, at last, there is.’

The relief in that last sentence is palpable. Some in Downing Street say it is now accepted that – unless Cameron falls victim to events – Boris will not get a chance to challenge for the Leadership until after the Prime Minister
wants
to move on. Downing Street sources say they are not giving a ‘moment’s thought’ to Boris not serving a second term as mayor: ‘We just believe he will win.’ In the Tory high command minds are already turning to a potential Boris v. George Osborne contest
after
2016, when it is thought likely that Cameron will step down to ‘pursue other interests’. But as the architect of the Cameron government’s divisive austerity plan, Osborne may find himself ruled out of the running and in any case, chancellors rarely go on to make a success of the top slot.

At the time of writing, with the phone hacking scandal still raging, it is still difficult to predict whose reputations will emerge unscathed and whose will be irreparably damaged. It has already been suggested that Boris should consider his own position for not having taken the scandal seriously enough, or ensuring that it was properly investigated by the Metropolitan Police, over whom he presides as mayor. Moreover it is far too early to predict who else will pitch in for the Leadership, whenever the vacancy arises. After a faltering performance over News Corporation’s increasingly controversial bid to take full control of BSkyB, shares in rising star Jeremy Hunt are now being sold by political commentators, whereas Osborne has remained conspicuously distant and the previously unfancied Philip Hammond and Theresa May have won new fans. But they might all struggle to appeal to enough northern or Scottish voters to seal a definitive Conservative majority. There is the very real possibility that the next
Tory leadership election will be won by someone still shrouded in obscurity but already hatching his (or her) master plan for glory.

If Boris does stay in City Hall until 2016 – when he will be pushing 52 – his age but more importantly, his familiarity, might also begin to count against him. All politicians have their shelf life and after eight years as London mayor, he may well start to look like a throwback to another age. Boris could fall victim, like a whole generation of Labour politicians born between 1955 and 1964, to a party deciding to skip a generation in its search for freshness and new direction (possibly plumping for a leader who has never supped with the Murdochs.) Indeed, if Boris is stuck in the political long-term car park of a second mayoral term, that will suit his rivals and the current occupants of Downing Street just fine. Insiders ill-disguise their satisfaction that it will be ‘a long road’ from City Hall for Boris to realise ‘the ambitions we know he has in national government.’ But then, as we have seen over and over, it is perilous to underestimate his ability to spring a surprise or recover miraculously from what looks like a hopeless situation. No doubt he himself is wondering if it would not be better to go down to a heroic and stylish defeat in the 2012 mayorals to give himself more options.

Worryingly for his prime ministerial ambitions, though, was that while the June 2011 poll (conducted before the phone hacking scandal really took off) found that 50 per cent of voters thought Boris ‘charismatic’, only 13 per cent deemed him a ‘natural leader’. Just 18 per cent saw Ken as charismatic, but a slightly higher 19 per cent per cent regarded him as a ‘natural leader’. Twice as many also believed Ken would be good in a crisis compared to Boris (23 per cent to 12). These apparently conflicting views strengthen the widespread perception that voters back Boris for the mayorship largely on personality as opposed to policy. Perhaps they would feel differently if he was pitching himself as a future prime minister with the altogether more serious job of pursuing the national interest. No doubt this is something that troubles a man who has always struggled to be taken seriously: it poses the question that while a Boris premiership would undoubtedly be fun and possibly exciting, what would it achieve?