Boris is the kind of Tory I'd vote for: which means he can win
Rod Liddle urges his friend to stand for Mayor of London and demonstrate what modern Conservatism can do — if you let it 1 've voted Conservative only once in my life — during elections to the London School of Economics students' union 23 years ago, when the Tory manifesto pledged to spend all of the union money on buying a racehorse, rather than giving it to the bloody miners, or Robert Mugabe, or Pol Pot, as Labour wished to do. A lot of my fellow lefties voted similarly, sick to the back teeth of the posturing, grand-standing, attitudinalising antics of these awful little gobby public schoolboys from Tunbridge Wells and Berkhamsted in their interminable Che Guevara berets and Coal Not Dole! badges. This sort of middle-class Leninist radical chic was well past its sell-by date even in 1984 and joyously lampooned by both Rik Maya11 in The Young Ones and 'Student Grant' in Viz at the time. And yet, bizarrely, all these years later we find that a sort of warped, less amenable, version of Student Grant is still Mayor of London; the old History Man moustache may have disappeared along with the Comrade Mugabe safari suit and those pointless newts, but the infantile leftist posturing, the colossal arrogance and the incompetence remains.
I have yet to meet anyone in London who voted for Ken Livingstone — but then most of my London friends are from the (largely white) working class. Why on earth would they vote for him? And yet he is still in power, slowly grinding the traffic in the capital to a complete standstill, charging four quid for a single ticket on the Tube, imposing a St Patrick's Day `Semtex 'n' transubstantiation' parade on us all, inviting Muslim clerics who wish we would all die to address the nation, and prone to divesting himself of gobbets of pure, unrefined antiSemitism whenever his policies are questioned. Is there a more obnoxious politician in the country than Ken? Or one more ludicrous? Why do people like him? Is it simply that he annoys, or annoyed, Tony Blair?
So, anyway, now there's another chance for lefties like me to vote Conservative once again, with the news that Boris Johnson may run for mayor of London. I would have voted for Steve Norris before — a hugely likeable man — but without much expectation of success, given Norris's comparatively low profile. Boris, though, could just about do it — and provide an electoral fillip to the Conservative party in the process without frightening too many sedate Tory horses grazing in the shires. Look, this is what modern Conservatism can do, if you let it — a form of enlightened and compassionate libertarianism. An administration informed by the green movement rather than hijacked by it. A respect and tolerance for those who wish to partake of such profoundly anti-social vices as driving or smoking; a quick memo scribbled to the Metropolitan Police on day one that burglaries and street crime should be where the substance of their money is spent; a St George's Day parade with all creeds and colours urged to take part; a rapid repairing of the fences with our Jewish community.
I ought to declare an interest, I suppose. I've liked Boris Johnson since long before I began working for him in 2002, when he was, of course, the editor of this magazine. He always seemed a natural ally, despite his location on the political compass some 90 degrees to the right of my own. I can remember the two of us chatting together at some media party in Islington when, swathed in self-love and self-regard, Alastair Campbell manifested himself before us and, jabbing his finger at Boris, barked: 'You've got to decide what you want to be. A politician or a journalist.' And then he looked at me, with more contempt: 'And as for you, a journalist or a f***ing troublemaker.' Boris and I agreed later that in each instance we'd rather prefer to be both. It has to be said, though, that the brief of higher education, important though it might be, is a waste of his talents. Boris has it all; he is that rare thing, a politician who is actively liked, rather than merely tolerated or, more likely, loathed, by the general public — who see in him, much as I did, plenty of grounds for a cross-party alliance.
This is partly because, like all politicians, he is sometimes required to talk anodyne or disingenuous rot, but unlike the remainder, he cannot keep a straight face while doing so. It is partly the self-parodic Etonian burbling and the hilarious hair. But more than any of this it is a certain warmth, that vital thing, a sense of humour and the intimation of an intellect too diffuse and rebellious to be corralled by a chief whip or Conservative Central Office. The danger for David Cameron is that at some point in the future, in the near future, Boris will go 'off message' when faced with the competing, irresistible, demand of common sense. It is faintly disappointing that he has not gone off message very much so far (he has been appallingly well-disciplined, in fact). As mayor of London it would not matter one bit if he was off message in perpetuity, to his heart's content. The danger for Boris is that his party loses next time around and he is left on the margins in a middle-ranking shadow ministerial job, wheeled out occasionally for Question Time and the like when the producers feel they need a human being on the panel. That's a waste, isn't it? He will be worrying right now about whether or not to take the offer of his party's candidacy; worried, I would guess, about doing the wrong thing by his constituency in Henley-on-Thames and whether or not high office — which is what he yearns for, oddly enough — will be lost to him forever as a result. I suppose too that he worries that fighting the mayoral election while serving as MP for Henley might signal a lack of resolve to both constituencies, although Cameron would surely not wish him to stand down from Henley in the interim. One way or another, Boris is needed by the Conservative party.
Ironically, the template for the independent, wilful mayor of London is one drawn up by Ken Livingstone. The only possible downside of Boris running is that it might cheer up the leadership of the Labour party, which would love to see Livingstone hammered in his own back yard. That could happen: Livingstone's popularity may be chimeric, more rooted in his 'otherness' to the political mainstream than in is lefty credentials. Boris has that too; he is a similar sort of beast in many ways, except without the newts.
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