JUST BORIS: A Tale of Blond Ambition by Sonia Purnell

Author:Sonia Purnell [Purnell, Sonia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biographies & Memoirs, Historical, Europe, Great Britain, History, Ireland, England
ISBN: 9781845136659
Google: Swv2XwAACAAJ
Amazon: B0077FAXE4
Publisher: Aurum
Published: 2011-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

In his first four years as an MP, Boris managed to attend only slightly over half of the votes and he was ranked 525th out of 659 MPs on attendance. By his second Parliament, from 2005 to 2008, this had slipped further still to just 45 per cent, a cause of resentment among his colleagues and party whips. It perhaps did not help that within four months of being elected to Westminster he had followed the first Johnsonian rule that all life’s events must be exploited for financial gain in publishing the first of his political memoirs. Friends, Voters, Countrymen was a slight volume, covering merely his selection and election as there was nothing else to say, but it was fun and pacy. At the launch party in Politicos, the Westminster political bookshop, Boris secretly teased his publishers and mocked his own insubstantial volume in ancient Greek – repeatedly saying ‘mega biblion, mega kakon’ or ‘a great book is a great evil.’ No one could imagine, even so, how he had found the time to write it. No doubt it helped that he was given more ‘slack’ by the whips than other, less glittering MPs. ‘We didn’t see that much of him,’ confirms the former MP and whip Andrew Mackay. ‘He had a pretty full-time second job. But because he looked so different from everyone else, when he was here everybody noticed it. A drabber backbencher might have to be here full-time to be noticed as much as Boris half-time.’

For a maverick, he rebelled against his party a puny five times in his seven years as an MP. When he did so, it was usually taking a more liberal line than the leadership (and, indeed, his own previous positions), such as backing the repeal of the infamous Section 28 ban on the promotion of homosexuality and voting in favour of giving legal status to change of gender for transsexuals.

When he did appear in the chamber, Boris’s style seemed particularly unfit for purpose and he came over as awkward and exposed. He would annoy rather than amuse by addressing other members as ‘old boy’ rather than the ‘honourable gentleman’ that etiquette required. What’s more, he looked fidgety sitting on the Commons’ green benches for more than a few minutes, once acidly noting, ‘It is a great pleasure to follow Dr Palmer. I congratulate him on speaking for more than half an hour.’ Labour MPs took delight in taking shot at his divided loyalties and the rumours soon circulating about Boris’s ‘other’ interests: ‘I am happy to follow Mr Johnson, who is glancing at his watch. Clearly, he wants to go and put the Spectator to bed and I am sure that he will do it very well,’ said one, back in February 2002.

Unwisely, Boris once peppered a long speech about holiday entitlement in 2003 with classical references to Hammurabi, Moses, Plato and Cicero. ‘He’s definitely a credit to Eton education,’ said the Labour MP Anne McGuire in a tone that suggested this was not necessarily a good thing.

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