On age advantage in general elections

There have been 20 elections in the UK since the end of the second world war. A recent post looked at the vote share of the two main parties (Conservative and Labour) in these elections. Another, perhaps less well-grounded, updated the remarkable record of graduates of Oxford university being the winners – now 18 times out of the 20.

Yet another, but not altogether serious, statistic about elections which is easily captured is the age difference between the contenders (Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition), shown for the post-war period in the chart below.

The green shadow indicates where the election generated a change of governing party. 1945, following the wartime coalition led by Winston Churchill, and 2010, leading to a Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition led by David Cameron, are assumed to be changes of party. Eight of the 20 elections were then of this kind. In the four elections from 1966 to 1974 the age difference between the contenders was insignificant, Harold Wilson being born in March and Edward Heath in July 1916. For this reason, no conclusions can be drawn about the 1970 and February 1974 changes of government. However, in five of the remaining six elections in which there was a change of party, the successful challenger was younger, on four occasions by 10 years or more. The only older successful challenger was in 1951, when, having failed to displace Clement Attlee in 1950, Churchill returned to the Prime Ministership.

In the 12 continuity elections (ie with no consequent change of governing party), Wilson’s successes against Heath in 1966 and October 1974 are as before insignificant as far as age differences are concerned. Cameron’s success in 2015 against Ed Miliband, who was three years younger, and John Major’s in 1992, when a year and a day older than Neil Kinnock, are probably best regarded as inconclusive as well. In the eight remaining continuity elections, three of the victors had an age advantage of more than 10 years and two were more than five years younger. Three were older, Margaret Thatcher’s defeat of Kinnock in 1987, when more than 15 years older, being easier to understand than Harold Macmillan’s of Hugh Gaitskell in 1959 when more than ten years older.

Is there any underlying significance to all this? It could be that for the electorate to move a party from opposition to government, there has to be an appetite for change and the case for fulfilling it can be made more convincingly by a younger person – Wilson in 1964, Margaret Thatcher in 1979, Tony Blair in 1997, Cameron in 2010.

And what should the two parties’ strategies be for the next election if they were to take age advantage seriously? Labour would, it seems, be more likely to succeed in selling change to the electorate with a much younger leader than Jeremy Corbyn, 68 but now not easily dislodged. It is worth noting that while Cameron at 43 in 2010 was the youngest PM since 1812, Justin Trudeau became Canadian Prime Minister in 2015 at the same age and Emmanuel Macron was elected president of France this year at 39. Labour might well want to wait for the Tories to move first but ought already to be considering that their man or woman should be much more than five years younger than Boris Johnson or Amber Rudd (both currently 53) and significantly younger than Michael Gove (49, going on 60) or Sajid David (47). The Conservatives (on the assumption that Theresa May is no longer PM by then) should aim to nullify any future Labour leader’s age advantage by choosing someone in their early forties. It would also be to the Tory’s advantage to play it long and keep Labour waiting.   Oh, and if they'd been to Oxford ...

Anyone thinking of starting up a new party under, say, David Miliband, should remember that he is 52 next month. How time passes.


Update 27 June 2017 

On 25 June, the Sunday Telegraph carried an article by Ben Riley-Smith, Tory plot to skip 'toxic' generation and install younger face as next leader.

Tory MPs and donors are plotting to “skip a generation” and install a younger MP as their next leader after concluding the front-runners to replace Theresa May are too toxic. A growing number of Conservatives believe that Boris Johnson and David Davis have “had their day” and only younger faces can revive the party’s fortunes.  

… Hopes are now turning to the “golden generation” of Tory MPs first elected in 2010 to win back younger voters who voted for Jeremy Corbyn en masse at the election.  Sajid Javid, the Business Secretary, Dominic Raab, the Eurosceptic justice minister, and Priti Patel, the International Development Secretary, are all being talked up by colleagues.  Other ministers from the 2010 intake such as Jesse Norman, Brandon Lewis and Jo Johnson - the brother of Boris - are also mentioned as possible contenders.  

Supporters of the plan point to how David Cameron, the last Tory to win the party a majority, was barely known when he joined the leadership race in 2005.  

“If and when this happens, we need Year Zero – a real radical revolution,” said one 2010 MP about a leadership switch.  “We need an equivalent to Ruth Davidson [the Scottish Tory leader] – someone completely counter-intuitive. She is a lesbian kick-boxer who doesn’t fit the mould. When she first got elected she didn’t have much cut through. But because they are new and different it will gather stream [sic].” 

One veteran MP warned that “all the front-runners are contaminated in one way or the other". Another younger MP said: “They’ve had their day and it hasn’t worked. For the current lot – Boris and the rest of them – their time is up.

Raab is 43; Patel, 45; Norman, 55; Lewis and Jo Johnson, both 46.

Such STRANGE times

The last few weeks of the EU referendum campaign in the UK and the days since the result became clear on 24 June have been some of the strangest I’ve known, the political sphere reaching into private life in an unprecedented and uncomfortable way. Life may revert to something nearer normal when the new Prime Minister* is in place and the country becomes more settled on its future path, uncertain though it is sure to be.

By the end of the year there will be books galore attempting to explain what has been going on. The journalist Tim Shipman, for example, is promising All Out War, the inside story of Brexit. By then the strange affair of the email sent on 28 June by Sarah Gove (Michael Gove’s wife, better known as the journalist, Sarah Vine) will probably be little more than a footnote, some background to her husband’s decision to run for the party leadership and Boris Johnson’s to withdraw. For the record though, here it is:

The email originally came into the hands of Sky News, though the clearer image above comes from Guido Fawkes. According to Sky:

An email sent to Michael Gove by his wife reveals concerns about the support Boris Johnson has in the party and the media. The email, which was also sent to the Justice Secretary's aides, was passed to Sky News.

Oddly, the email refers to “you” and “your” three times each, but also to “Michael”, as if he were a third party like “Henry” and “Beth”. Or as if all those three were copy addressees, not the main one.

When Gove emerged as a candidate, Ian Leslie, quite justifiably drew attention to a long New Statesman article presciently titled Michael Gove, the polite assassin, which he wrote back in October 2015. Fascinating throughout, one passage struck me:

…[Gove’s] closest adviser, Dominic Cummings. It is impossible to understand Gove’s time at Education, or indeed Gove, without considering his relationship with the man described by Nick Clegg as “loopy” and by others as brilliant or bullying, or both. … 

Cummings, like Gove, has a love of argument, as well as a suspicion, bordering on contempt, for those who compromise, muddle through and fail to pick sides. But he doesn’t have Gove’s politesse. He cares little – or even notices – what people think of him. In a departmental meeting, Gove might make his dissatisfaction clear by his tone, but it would be Cummings who told the civil servants they were a shambles, or who shut meetings down abruptly, and Cummings who sent around hectoring emails, with liberal use of capital letters, to staff in the department.

*The new PM – see my post in 2013, The Oxford Incumbency. From the Table there (2015A was, of course, the outcome last year), it would seem almost inevitable that the next Prime Minister will be either Teresa May or Michael Gove, the other three contenders not having gone to Oxford. May currently seems the far more likely of those two. However, these are strange times when referendums overturn the status quo – so who knows?

UPDATE 11 JULY

Teresa May will become Prime Minister on 13 July – the Oxford Incumbency continues, things must be getting back to normal!

Churchill and the Appeasers, Johnson and the Remainers

Would a Prime Minister Johnson "forgive and understand" their wrong-headedness?

Back in February, I remarked in a post here that:

There is even one school of thought that whether the result [of the Brexit referendum] is leave or remain, Boris Johnson will become the next leader of the Conservative party and therefore Prime Minister

and, if anything, this outcome seems more likely, not less. In fact, if being taken seriously is a measure, recent excoriating attacks on Johnson by, for instance, Matthew Parris on 26 March in The Times (Tories have got to end their affair with Boris, Charm can make us forget the dishonesty and recklessness that would be ruthlessly exposed if he became leader) and Nick Cohen in the Guardian a few days later (Boris Johnson. Liar, conman – and prime minister? The mayor of London has been treated with woozy indulgence by the media. But Britain may pay the price), suggest much more likely. Reacting to Parris, John Rentoul in the Independent was calm, It's time to get used to the idea of living under Prime Minister Boris Johnson, or perhaps just resigned.

Not long before, I had come across the biography which Johnson had written in 2014, The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History. Reviewers tended to regard it as very readable in the style of Johnson’s Daily Telegraph opinion pieces which appear most Mondays (at £5000 a time they say), as not adding much to the huge amount of literature on his subject already available and as being as much about Johnson as Churchill.

It occurred to me that if Johnson were to become PM after a Brexit vote, he would be leading a Cabinet many of whom had been "remainers". How would he deal with them? Would his portrayal of Churchill who, after only three weeks as PM and in a much greater crisis in 1940, had to work with senior members of a Cabinet who had been advocates of appeasing Hitler, offer any insights?

Rather to my surprise, Chapter 1 plunges straight in at this point in Churchill’s life with The Offer from Hitler, made via Italy to negotiate an end to hostilities. This was put to the Cabinet in May 1940 by Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary and long-term appeaser of Hitler:

[Halifax] was tall, very tall; at 6 foot 5 he loomed about ten inches above Churchill – though I suppose advantage matters less around a table. (page 11)

Johnson is no more than 5 foot 10 by the way. Later after describing the Cabinet’s deliberations, Johnson comments:

It makes one cringe, now, to read poor Halifax’s defeatism; and we need to forgive and understand his wrong-headedness. (page 16)

and later:

All we are saying – in mitigation of Halifax – is that in seeking peace, he had the support of many British people, at all levels of society. (page 17)

Over 200 pages later (Johnson’s book is thematic in structure, not chronological) Halifax re-appears in 1941, prior to Pearl Harbor and the USA’s entry to WW2, as

… the British ambassador in Washington. This was none other than our old friend the Earl of Halifax: the beanpole-shaped appeaser - he who used to go hunting with Goering. Halifax was the British envoy charged with appealing to the finer feelings of the United States and he was having a terrible time. Shortly after arriving he is said to have sat down and wept - in despair at the culture clash. He couldn't understand the American informality, or their habit of talking on the telephone or popping round for unexpected meetings. In May 1941 the aristocratic old Etonian endured fresh torment when he was taken to a Chicago White Sox baseball game and invited to eat a hotdog. He refused. Then he was pelted with eggs and tomatoes by a group called the Mothers of America. Even for an appeaser, it seems a hell of a punishment. (page 247)

Johnson, if not inclined to vindictiveness, at least seems to have a taste for schadenfreude. He fingers a few other appeasers, for example:

Rab Butler, then a junior Foreign Office minister, was caught telling a Swedish diplomat that he thought Britain should do a deal – if Hitler offered the right terms (page 230)

returns to Johnson’s sights

… Tory drips such as Butler (the old appeaser) … (page 288)

So perhaps Tory remainers shouldn’t hold out too much hope of forgiveness and understanding from a Prime Minister Johnson.

There are some good things in The Churchill Factor. Johnson gives a whole chapter, An Icy Ruthlessness, to the decision to destroy the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir, a tragedy which the British tend to overlook when revisiting the events of 1940. And another, The Ships that Walked, to Churchill’s sponsorship, when at the Admiralty during WW1, of the initial development of the tank by the Directorate of Naval Construction.

Unlike some celebrity writers, Johnson is happy to give credit to various helpers in the Acknowledgements, in particular Dr Warren Dockter, but my favourite is the one to a fellow Old Etonian:

David Cameron did some invaluable devilling into the exact locations of the pivotal meetings in May 1940 – not at all clear in Lukacs, for instance. (page 361/2)

UPDATE 24 APRIL 2016

Remarks by Johnson about President Obama at the time of the visit to London have led to Borises being sold heavily in the reputations market in the last few days – perhaps never to recover, although there are still 60 days to go before the Referendum.

Earlier in the month Johnson had published his tax return:

 - his earnings from the Daily Telegraph seem to match their reputation. In The Churchill Factor (pages 72 and 73), Johnson dismisses Evelyn Waugh’s criticisms of Churchill’s literary style:

Is it that Waugh was a teensy bit jealous? I think so; and the reason was not just that Churchill had become so much more famous than Waugh had been, by the time he was twenty-five, but that he had made such stupendous sums from writing. And that, for most journalists, alas, is the truly sensitive point of comparison. (page 73)

The Top Brass (retd) Brexit Letter

On 24 February the Daily Telegraph published a letter from 12 retired very senior military officers addressing the security aspect of Brexit (as the more dramatic possible outcome of the June referendum on the UK’s leaving the European Union is known). Key extracts:

As former military officers, we think that it is time to consider the broader strategic issues. Between us we have led the Royal Navy, Army, and Royal Air Force, or held other senior positions in the military. … we are particularly concerned with one central question: will Britain be safer inside the EU or outside it? 

… Britain’s role in the EU strengthens the security we enjoy as part of Nato, adds to our capability and flexibility when it comes to defence co-operation and allows us to project greater power internationally. In a dangerous world it helps us to safeguard our people, our prosperity and our way of life. We therefore believe strongly that it is in our national interest to remain an EU member.

Originally the letter had 13 signatories. After its publication, various newspapers, for example the Guardian, explained that the letter had originated from Number 10. It was also revealed that Downing Street had had to apologise to one general for adding his name without his consent.

The word “military” tends to be misunderstood as referring solely to the Army, but correctly it is applicable (as in the letter above) to all three services. It is interesting, therefore, to consider the breakdown of the signatories by service (for the ranks see the note below):

The table raises two points. Firstly, I pointed out here five years ago that “One asset which British defence seems to possess in abundance is a large cohort of senior officers of all three services, serving and retired, …”. How big a cohort might that be? Well, in service currently there are about 100 men (mostly) of rank known as “three star” and above. Assuming that on average these people are in post for about three years, then retire at 60 and die at 80, it follows that for each one now working (and there were rather more than 100 a decade or two ago), there are six or seven predecessors enjoying their retirement. So Number 10 should have been able to call on, by my guesstimate, about 700 sound chaps but only alighted on 12.

Secondly, these “about 100” top posts have always been shared almost exactly among the three services, yet in the letter there are seven Army former top brass to one RAF. That is to say, only one RAF retiree among well over 200 who might have been approached. Odd, but then the referendum is becoming an increasingly odd business producing unlikely alliances. There is even one school of thought that whether the result is leave or remain, Boris Johnson will become the next leader of the Conservative party and therefore Prime Minister with hands then on so many levers of power. For example, the Daily Telegraph reported on 22 January that:

A senior RAF officer who commanded Britain’s 2011 intervention in Libya has been chosen to be the next Chief of the Defence Staff. Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach will take over the post as head of the military later this year after beating candidates from the Army and Navy. Sir Stuart was a surprise choice after being chosen ahead of the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir George Zambellas, and Gen Sir Richard Barrons. The Prime Minister is believed to have met all three candidates in recent weeks to choose a replacement for the current Chief of the Defence Staff, Gen Sir Nicholas Houghton.

Johnson’s biographer, Sonia Purnell, has long held the view that:

I think he is the most ruthless, ambitious person I have ever met. (Introduction to Just Boris: A Tale of Blond Ambition, 2011)

Whether under Boris’s affable exterior, there is a man with a long memory for his friends and for his enemies, I don’t know, but the RAF, typically shrewdly, seem to have kept their distance. As for the argument expressed in the letter, there are other views. For example, those of General Sir Michael Rose, who would have been the 13th man and who told Sky News:

I have doubts about the wisdom of using military officers for a political campaign. I happen to believe sovereignty and security are intrinsically linked and in recent years we've seen the EU erode our sovereignty.

Notes on the Table

Anyone really interested in the breakdown by rank will probably understand the “Star” and "NATO Equivalent" column headings and can study the signatories’ titles in their letter. But this might help:

OF8, 3 Star: Vice Admiral, Lt General, Air Vice Marshal
OF9, 4 Star: Admiral, General, Air Marshal
OF10; 5 Star: Admiral of the Fleet, Field Marshal, Marshal of the RAF.

The 5 Star rank is no longer used for Chiefs of the Defence Staff who are now 4 Star like the individual service chiefs. However, they seem to be given the higher rank on an honorary basis on retirement – only the Brits …

Royal Marine officers are probably counted as part of the RN for these arcane astronomical purposes.


UPDATE 29 February

The Times today has a pro-Brexit article, Don’t count on the EU to protect us. Nato will do that, by a retired Rear Admiral and in the Sun two former Major Generals and a Commodore are opining under the heading Falklands heroes call for Britain to leave the European Union. So the Notes above need to be extended:

OF7; 2 Star: Rear Admiral, Major General, Air Vice Marshal
OF6; 1 Star: Commodore, Brigadier, Air Commodore

There are probably more than 70 OF7s and 200 OF6s currently in post, so the total retired cohort (using the rule of thumb above) could be as many as 2000. And there are 115 days to go before Referendum Day!


UPDATE early March

The big guns seemed to fall silent, at least temporarily, in late February following a withering barrage from a former Royal Marine “OF7 2 Star”, Major General Julian Thompson, in the Daily Telegraph: I fought for Britain and I know how the EU weakens our defences, The myth that leaving the EU would harm British national security must be destroyed once and for all.  He attacked what he regards as four common myths which obscure understanding of why “membership of the EU weakens our national defence in very dangerous times”.

The other road to 2020

I posted here last month about the prospects for Jeremy Corbyn (Labour’s new Leader of the Opposition), out to the 2020 general election by looking at some of the statistics relating to his 13 predecessors in the last 60 years. Of course, not all Prime Ministers begin as Leaders of the Opposition. If a Prime Minister dies or resigns, his or her party chooses a new leader who succeeds to the Prime Ministership. Their challenge is to legitimise themselves by winning the next general election.

Looking back at the 2015 election, apart from the dismal performance of the opinion polls and the prediction machines which fed off them, there were two striking features of the outcome: the rise to dominance of the SNP in the Scottish constituencies and the collapse of the Liberal Democrats, particularly in SW England. But a third aspect of the campaign is likely to become almost as significant. In March during an interview in his constituency home, David Cameron told James Landale, the BBC’s deputy political editor that:

"There definitely comes a time where a fresh pair of eyes and fresh leadership would be good, and the Conservative Party has got some great people coming up - the Theresa Mays, and the George Osbornes, and the Boris Johnsons. 

"You know, there's plenty of talent there. I'm surrounded by very good people." 

He added: "I've said I'll stand for a full second term, but I think after that it will be time for new leadership. "Terms are like Shredded Wheat - two are wonderful but three might just be too many."

Perhaps in years to come we will find out whether there always was a long-term plan to make this intention clear prior to polling day. On the other hand, I do wonder whether Cameron would have been quite so forthcoming if it hadn’t been Landale, a man with the unusual characteristics of being both an Old Etonian like Cameron and being taller than the PM. From personal experience I know that, if you are well above the average male height, the occasional encounter with someone who looks down at you is disconcerting and Cameron I estimate as around 6 feet 1 inch (1.85m).

Anyway, back to the statistics. The table below shows the six PMs who had greatness thrust upon them, rather than having to take on the worst job in British politics first. The data is so sparse that conclusions are even more difficult to draw than in the previous post – apart that is from the Tories seeming better at this particular evolution than Labour.

Looking at the successors to Cameron mentioned above and elsewhere, as far as age is concerned Teresa May could be at a disadvantage and John Major would be a good precedent for George Osborne. On the other hand, President Hillary Clinton and Jeremy Corbyn would both be in their early 70s in May 2020.

As to when the take-over should be, 2018 might be the year to bet on if the Tories maximising their chances of success is the determining factor. But the outcome of the EU referendum might bring things forward to 2017 or even 2016.

Could David Miliband do a Boris (part 2)

Previously on Western Independent: 

Back in August I pulled together two stories in the UK press to address the question “Could David Miliband do a Boris?”.  Boris Johnson had just announced his intention to stand as Tory candidate in the 2015 election and The Times had run an article on 7 August, Still smiling, but it hides the battle of an alien in New York, about David Miliband which suggested that things weren’t all that they might be over there:

… Despite being in the midst of a complex and difficult reorganisation of a big international charity, as well as the usual problems of settling a family into a foreign city, Mr Miliband still pays close attention to British politics down to the fine details. etc, etc.

A few days later the Observer ran an “exclusive interview” with Miliband, possibly to get the record straight:

"Both Ed and I want the other to succeed," he said. "Strongly, passionately. And we also both work hard to keep personal lines open and private. I'm focused in succeeding in my job … and I want him to succeed in his job. And I'm sure it's the same for him." Yet on the subject of whether the Ed-led Labour party will win next year's election, he was not emphatic: "I think that it's really open. I think we can." Then he hedged. "I never say we will win. Because I'm a protagonist, not a commentator."

On 20 August The Times Red Box came up with another twist:

Labour MPs hoping to bring David Miliband back into the fold have an idea for his brother Ed. They say that Ed should make David British ambassador to Washington if he wins the general election, as reported in The Times Diary this morning.  It would be the ideal way of rehabilitating him, paving the way for a later return to British politics after a spell in the US capital, they say.

Boris Johnson is now the Conservative candidate for the safe seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip. But four months later, we seem to be going around the same buoy again with Miliband D. The Financial Times has selected the charity he directs (the International rescue Committee) as its charity of the year. (Miliband had told the Observer that it was a $500 million organisation, but no doubt every little extra helps). So its deputy editor, John Thornhill, went to New York for Lunch with the FT with Miliband as guest*, and authored the feature on 13 December. Personally, I find this weekly format a tired and tiresome way to report an interview:

He opted for a simple salad to start while I go for the kale salad. “It’s much more edible than you think. It’s not like chewing cardboard,” he reassures me.

But later:

As I sample my mound of kale, sprinkled with a few roasted nuts [$16.00], I conclude he was wrong about the cardboard.

Never trust a politician! Eventually:

Now that we are on to the red meat, I ask him about the bloody issue of British politics. … I ask him who he thinks is going to win the next election. “I passionately want Labour to win – and Ed to win,” he says. And would his brother make a good prime minister? Without hesitation, he shoots back: “Of course. I would know that better than most.” What are his qualities? “What I would say is that the clarity, the vision, the determination, those are all important qualities. But, equally, I have made it a rule not to insert myself into the political dynamic for two reasons. One, I have got a job that requires me to work with the current government. And, two, I am trying to run a charity, not a political party. My experience is that anything I say gets taken out of context. While it might not be twisted in your hands, it will be twisted in the re-spinology that goes on. So we should probably leave it at that.” 

Miliband drinks a double espresso while I sip on a green tea and ask him whether he could ever envisage a return to UK politics. He says he has made a big commitment to join IRC and is fully dedicated to his job. But, he adds, he does not intend to become an American citizen and spend the rest of his life in the US. Life is unpredictable, he suggests. Two years ago, he had no idea he would now be in New York running the IRC. “You just don’t know, do you?” 

It seems unlikely that someone who has devoted most of his adult life to Westminster would be content to see his political career finished before the age of 50. Perhaps, I venture, it would be a good thing if British politicians had multiple careers — as is so often the case in the US. “Tony Blair and John Major have said that they wish they’d done their post-premiership jobs before they became prime minister,” he says. 

Maybe, I suggest, he is learning from their experience and doing a pre-premiership job outside politics? He guffaws with laughter. “That’s not the way I conceived it.”

Comparing the FT interview with the Observer one, and both are, presumably selections from what was said, albeit one would like to think unvetted, David seems more enthusiastic about Ed than in the summer. There is little point in speculating at length as to why this might be the case. But currently the odds are just about on Ed Miliband as PM. If that were so, putting David in the Washington embassy might offer parallels with Churchill’s despatch of his rival Halifax in 1941. However, in the event of Hilary Clinton, who has a high opinion of David, becoming 45th president in 2016, that might put him in too powerful a position. And would it be appropriate anyway for a former Foreign Secretary to take up an ambassadorial post, even in Washington or Paris?

But what if Ed isn’t PM next May? He might not go, nor may his party want him to. For example, if Labour fail to secure the seats they need because of the rise of the SNP, it would hardly be Ed’s fault. Or if Cameron cobbles together a tottery government with Ulster Unionist and/or UKIP support? On three occasions since 1945 there have been general elections soon followed by another to resolve an unworkable situation: 1950/51, 1964/66, and 1974/74. But if he failed to become PM after a second election Ed would certainly have to go . No wonder David is happy to go on record as thinking life is unpredictable, “You just don’t know, do you?”.

*At the David Burke Kitchen, 23 Grand Street, NY10013.

Boris Johnson’s Body Mass Index

Boris Johnson came out with this to the Daily Telegraph recently:

Although some people have been kind enough to say I don’t look as though I could conceivably be over 15 stone, I weigh almost 17 stone*.

and I wouldn’t have expected him to be quite so heavy either. On the other hand, although I’ve never seen him in the flesh, on the television he does seem a little shorter than many top male politicians who are frequently six-footers or more. This is not a healthy combination, at least as measured by Body Mass Index (BMI).

Unsurprisingly, Johnson’s exact height and weight aren’t immediately available, but his remark above and information from the CelebHeights website can be combined to make an estimate of his BMI. CelebHeights states Johnson’s height as “5ft 9.5in (177 cm)”. Comments there, including some from people who have encountered him, suggest this is about right, 5ft 10in being the maximum likely. Assuming that “almost 17 stone” could, if Johnson were being uncharacteristically modest, be as low as 16.5 stone, “Best and Worst Case” BMIs can easily be calculated:

Unfortunately, even when the lightest/tallest combination is chosen, the resulting BMI is over 33. Although Johnson as Mayor of London has no responsibilities for health, as he pointed out to Andrew Marr on The Marr Show on 12 October:

… Well unfortunately, as you may know, I don’t have direct responsibility for healthcare in this city …

he could, if he wished, like anyone else look at the National Health Service’s online BMI healthy weight calculator and enter the Best Case data above for a male of 50 who regularly travels on a bike. He would be told:

and so on. According to the The Health Survey for England – 2012 Chapter 10, about a third of English men of Johnson’s age are similarly obese or worse and nearly half are just overweight**:

Now it could be that Johnson, like Wikipedia, is more sceptical about BMI than the NHS:

For example, a chart may say the ideal weight for a man 5 ft 10 in (178 cm) is 165 pounds (75 kg). But if that man has a slender build (small frame), he may be overweight at 165 pounds (75 kg) and should reduce by 10%, to roughly 150 pounds (68 kg). In the reverse, the man with a larger frame and more solid build can be quite healthy at 180 pounds (82 kg).

Johnson certainly is of a solid build but he would still seem to have over 20 kg he could do without. The newer measure of waist-to-height ratio might provide a more comfortable fit, if his waist is no more than 42 in (107 cm, ie 0.6 times height for an over 50). Alternatively Johnson believes that for him in matters corporeal, just as in matters political, the normal rules don’t apply. To be fair, he did encourage all of us to lose weight in an article in the Daily Telegraph in June 2014, If we can’t do it on our own, then let’s lose weight together.

1987 and 2014

Like most of us Johnson has changed over the years (right). Unkindly, this brings to mind the lament of Frank Greco, a character in Mark Winegardner’s Godfather sequel, The Godfather's Revenge:

When I was young, they said I looked like a Greek God. Now I just look like a goddamn Greek.

But most of us, of course, never looked like a Greek God in the first place.

* Some readers may be asking, What is a stone? 14 pounds is the short answer, so a 17 stone man weighs 238 pounds, or 107.95 kg.

** An earlier post contained some international comparisons of BMI.  Also, as pointed out there, anyone with a BMI above 30 or below 18.5 should seek medical advice).

Theresa May on ISIL

At the Conservative party conference in Birmingham there was an interesting contrast between the three big beasts that are regarded as contenders for the Tory leadership after Cameron. Boris Johnson did his usual comic turn but George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Theresa May, Home Secretary, offered serious, if not bordering on the grim, assessments of the economy and terrorism. Perhaps the success in the Scottish referendum of the Stay Together campaign, which was founded on a realistic approach to the risks and problems, will encourage politicians to think that the electorate may appreciate a more mature and serious tone about the difficulties that the 21st century has begun to present.

This is what she said about ISIL:

The terrorists who murdered David Haines like to call themselves the Islamic State. But I will tell you the truth: They are not Islamic. And they are not a state. Their actions have absolutely no basis in anything written in the Quran. What they believe has no resemblance whatsoever to the beliefs of more than a billion Muslims all over the world. And, like all the other Islamist terrorist organisations, they have caused the deaths of many thousands of innocent Muslim civilians. They occupy large parts of Syria and Iraq, and not only are they bringing death and destruction to the people of those countries, they have made absolutely clear their desire to attack Britain, America and the West. 

… If ISIL succeed in firmly consolidating their grip on the land they occupy in Syria and Iraq, we will see the world’s first truly terrorist state established within a few hours flying time of our country. We will see terrorists given the space to plot attacks against us, train their men and women, and devise new methods to kill indiscriminately. We will see the risk, often prophesied but thank God not yet fulfilled, that with the capability of a state behind them, the terrorists will acquire chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons to attack us. This is not somebody else’s battle. They have made clear their ambitions. And they have made us their enemies. And the lesson of history tells us that when our enemies say they want to attack us, they mean it. We must not flinch. We must not shy away from our responsibility. We must not drift towards danger and insecurity. While we still have the chance, we must act to destroy ISIL.

I am not sure that a British Home Secretary has spoken publicly before in such unveiled terms of the risk that terrorists may “acquire chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons”.

Could David Miliband do a Boris?

On Thursday 7 August, The Times gave some of its front page and the whole of page 4 over to a “Boris bombshell” story, Boris Johnson having announced the day before that he wanted to stand for Parliament in the 2015 election. I have doubts as to whether Rupert Murdoch is particularly keen on Johnson. Certainly some of News Corp/News UK’s papers have their reservations. Later that day Simon Nixon posted a very critical piece, Boris Johnson Is Talking Piffle, on WSJ Blogs, and on 9 August in The Times, Matthew Parris, opinion columnist and former MP who has observed Johnson, commented about

… the Boris I’ve observed for years. He has some of the qualities of a great and inspirational leader — a political transcendent — and some of the qualities of a hideous car crash waiting to happen. 

I’m glad he wants to come back. He’ll be fun. He’ll enliven the Tory campaign, help in places, hurt in places, entertain everywhere and make little difference outside London. He’ll be a persistent irritant on the question of the Tory leadership, but he probably won’t ever be leader.

The leadership question had come to the fore in an analysis of Johnson’s strategy by John McTernan the previous day in the Scotsman, Riding to the rescue or a Tory car crash?:

The fact no-one wants to mention is that Boris’ return is predicated on a Tory defeat at the next election. … He can only be the leader if there is a vacancy. There can only be a vacancy if there is a defeat. 

… some argue that Cameron will win a majority, hold a referendum, win it and then gracefully hand over in 2018. If you believe that, do you mind sending me you bank details, your PIN and your mother’s maiden name. 

David Cameron is born to rule, and if he wins a majority next year – the first Tory majority in 23 years – he will enjoy every day of his five years in power. … If he can stay in power he will – whether an understanding with the DUP or supply and confidence with the Liberal Democrats. You will have to prize the code for the No10 flat from his cold, dead hands. 

No, Cameron goes when the Tories lose power. A triumphant Dave – in whatever form – kicks the leadership election beyond 2020, and then Sajid David will have shown us his paces.

But another politician (with grinning selfie) was spread over two pages by The Times on 7 August, David Miliband:

Rather a tale of woe:

Behind the smile, however, is a more fraught reality and fears that, despite moving to New York, Mr Miliband  remains a man at best in limbo, and at worst floundering. 

… Friends concede that it has not been an easy move [to run the International Rescue Committee] for the family. His wife, although American, was less than enthusiastic. 

… A friend adds that the two boys also found it difficult to settle. 

… The family spent the first holiday after the move not exploring the US, but visiting their old home in South Shields, his former constituency in the northeast. 

… Shortly after his arrival it was reported by The New York Times that “the plan is that with his international experience and gold-plated virtual Rolodex, Mr Miliband can bring in new sources of funding as well as raise the group’s profile”. Britain’s former foreign secretary has interpreted this job spec in a way that has increased tensions with some senior staffers at the IRC, his allies admit. 

… A couple of months after he started at the charity in earnest, The New York Times described how “some long-time IRC staff members responded to news of his appointment with a certain wariness, mainly because of Mr Miliband’s foreignness, his celebrity, his lack of experience running non-profit agencies and because they did not know what his management style would be.” 

… The US staff are said to find Mr Miliband aloof and arrogant.

And so on, with his lightweight social and public profile in the US, unlike Boris Johnson! And then:

There is no sign of a full — or even partial — reconciliation. Ed Miliband did not make a detour to see his brother during his trip to Washington last month. David Miliband did not see Ed when he was over in the Britain for a recent IRC conference in Windsor. In fact it is Louise Shackleton who remains the most unforgiving about Ed’s displacement of his brother, her husband. 

… Despite being in the midst of a complex and difficult reorganisation of a big international charity, as well as the usual problems of settling a family into a foreign city, Mr Miliband still pays close attention to British politics down to the fine details. “He knows far too much about canvass returns in Stevenage than he should,” one intimate says. It would be inhuman of Mr Miliband to want his brother to win handsomely, suggests another. In private, he is critical of Ed’s strategy and his narrow lead in the polls. He believes that the lead should be much greater given the collapse in most people’s living standards under the coalition government, and that the gap will inevitably narrow as the election approaches.

The article goes on to say that David Miliband is totally committed to the IRC and to speculate, rather unconvincingly, about how he might benefit from a Clinton victory in 2016.

An attempt was made to counter the “fraught reality” in the Observer on 10 August in an “exclusive interview” granted to Jon Swaine, David Miliband: 'I want Ed to succeed. I'm sure he feels the same about me':

… Miliband likes Italian food. His American wife, the violinist Louise Shackelton, prefers Japanese cuisine. Eating out is one of the best things about their new life, he said, denying rumours that they are not enjoying life in New York much at all. Soon they will be holidaying in Cape Cod. 

… "I'm absolutely convinced this is the right place to be for us," … "I wouldn't be happy if my family wasn't happy. That's a big thing. My kids are OK. Louise is OK." 

… Miliband said he was brought in to make the IRC "think, act, speak, like a $500m organisation, not like the much smaller one it used to be". Asked for a concrete change he'd made, he said: "We have galvanised the organisation to think ambitiously about its strategy for the future." Longer-serving IRC managers, apparently worried about risks to staff on the ground, reportedly fear creeping politicisation under Miliband, adding to the pressure they feel they are under to stay neutral. He denies any such clash. 

… He claimed that he doesn't follow "every twist and turn" of British politics, before saying he had watched the TV debate on Scottish independence the night before [6 August on STV, which would have been at 15:00 EST], and followed criticism of the wreath laid by his brother at a service to mark the centenary of the first world war. 

… In a telephone conversation later, following a report [presumably The Times above] that he privately wants his brother to fail, Miliband was asked [by whom, presumably not Swaine?] whether he thought he would be doing a better job. 

"Both Ed and I want the other to succeed," he said. "Strongly, passionately. And we also both work hard to keep personal lines open and private. I'm focused in succeeding in my job … and I want him to succeed in his job. And I'm sure it's the same for him." 

Yet on the subject of whether the Ed-led Labour party will win next year's election, he was not emphatic: "I think that it's really open. I think we can." Then he hedged. "I never say we will win. Because I'm a protagonist, not a commentator."

That there are parallels between David Miliband’s position and Johnson’s is obvious. If Ed M loses in 2015, and there is a leadership contest, the candidates would have to come from the Labour MPs who will be returned in the 2015 election. It wouldn’t be a much of a surprise to anyone who had read The Times article to hear that David M was looking for a seat (assuming the arcane rules and selection processes of the Labour party don’t make that impossible). And, no doubt one among several, Frank Dobson has just announced that he will be standing down in Holborn and St Pancras where he had a majority of nearly 10,000 in 2010.


UPDATE 20 AUGUST

An innovation at The Times which started this week is a daily political briefing, Red Box, sent by email at about 8 am London time. This morning it included the following:

LABOUR JOSTLING

Send David to Washington, Ed Miliband urged by MPs 

Labour MPs hoping to bring David Miliband back into the fold have an idea for his brother Ed. 

They say that Ed should make David British ambassador to Washington if he wins the general election, as reported in The Times Diary this morning. 

It would be the ideal way of rehabilitating him, paving the way for a later return to British politics after a spell in the US capital, they say. 

The idea of appointing David Miliband to the post was considered, then rejected, by Downing Street after the 2010 election. Sir Peter Westmacott is currently our man in Washington. 

The brother of the Labour leader currently lives in New York, where he heads the International Rescue Committee charity. 

As foreign secretary he forged good personal relations with Hillary Clinton, who is widely expected to run as the Democrat candidate in 2016. He would also be a voice trusted by the Obama administration in its final months. 

"What could be better?" a senior Labour politician told me. "It would be terrific for Ed to have David over in Washington, whoever takes over from Obama. And it would be a route back for David." 

Recently figures in the camps of the two Milibands have pondered how he might be brought back. They agree that if Ed wins the election his decision to stand against his brother in 2010 would be finally vindicated. He would be in a position to offer a role to his brother, and his brother should be prepared to take it.

UPDATE 30 DECEMBER 2014

David Miliband's situation has again been the subject of speculation  after an article appeared in the Financial Times earlier this month - see this post.  Keir Starmer has been selected as Labour candidate for Holborn and St Pancras.

The Donebullying Club

It was two years ago that I posted The Blue Angel: Talking up Gove Again at a time when various journalists were pushing the line that Michael Gove had all the makings of a future PM. Now there is a new flurry of interest because of what Toby Helm in the Observer on 16 March reports to be “an outbreak of leadership plotting and backstabbing at the top” of the Conservative party. This time round:

[a senior Tory MP] and others are tearing their hair out at an outbreak of leadership plotting and backstabbing at the top. They can't believe that after years of taking flak for austerity on doorsteps, senior figures are at one another's throats, apparently jostling for position in case the Tories fail to win a majority in 2015 and Cameron has to go. The party seems gripped by fear. A series of briefings and resulting stories splashed over Tory papers, MPs say, show Osborne, Cameron and Michael Gove are clearly out to stop Boris Johnson seizing the crown when the prime minister goes. 

… The main players in the plotting, MPs say, are supporters of Osborne who believe their man has proved himself and think they have to plan now to stop Johnson supplanting him, in case there is a vacancy after the election. Gove is claiming not to be interested in the leadership himself, which is what ambitious politicians often say. His main aim, it is said, is also to help Osborne and stop Johnson, but he is keeping himself very much in the mix.

A day earlier Gove had been the subject of the FT Weekend Magazine’s cover and a feature by George Parker and Helen Warrell,  How far will Michael Gove go? Their article has attracted attention because it quoted Gove deploring the over-representation of Etonians in David Cameron’s inner circle and indeed its main focus appears to be on Gove’s activities as Education Secretary. However, the leadership question is unavoidable:

Two scenarios are widely discussed among Tory MPs: that Cameron would certainly quit after a 2015 election defeat or that he steps down in the next parliament after his 2017 EU referendum.

Gove, it seems, is dedicated to securing Osborne as Tory leader and stopping Boris Johnson. The article notes his protestations that he wouldn’t want the top job himself, although at its conclusion the authors don’t seem totally convinced. But earlier one of their comments on Gove hardly seemed like an enthusiastic endorsement of his potential as Prime Minister either:

Gove’s career path has in some ways been blocked by his own political views. He could not be sent to the Foreign Office lest he provoked a war or pulled Britain out of the EU, while his friends say he would be driven mad at the Home Office by the constraints of EU Law and the European Convention on Human Rights when dealing with Islamic extremists. As for the Treasury, Gove has never been animated by economics.

The intriguing question is why all this now? I don’t believe that the Conservatives have already abandoned all hope of winning in 2015. So why so much worry this week about Cameron’s successor in three year’s time? Perhaps a remark by Gove about being PM having “seen David close up” provides a clue:

The pressure of the job is phenomenal and it takes a toll on you and your family and I don’t think I could do that.

Could it be that if Cameron doesn’t lose and go in 2015, he intends to stand down soon after victory anyway? Either way, he would be joining that select group, the former Prime Ministers, at a very young age: 

From Bullingdon Club to Donebullying Club in 30 years, one could say.


Notes: 
(1)  Cameron assumed to depart in either May 2015 or November 2017.
(2)  PMs after Thatcher assumed to live to 90. PMs from Macmillan to Thatcher lived to an average of 89.
(3)  Major was the second youngest departing PM since Queen Victoria, Rosebery being 48 in 1895.

The Oxford Incumbency

In the FT Weekend Magazine of 26/27 October, its editor, Simon Kuper, indulges in a trip down memory lane in the form of My return to Oxford, 25 years on, with the theme:

The Oxford I knew – shot through with sexual harassment, racism, dilettantism and sherry – has been replaced by something quite professional and money-conscious.

He tells his readers:

It wasn’t very hard to get into Oxford in my day, as almost all students – whether from private or state schools – were drawn from the small British upper and upper-middle class. Moreover, most were men.

and

Once you’d got in, little effort was expected. … Often an entire week’s workload consisted of writing one shortish essay (good preparation for being a columnist). Some of my essays were so shoddy that when I reread them before my final exams, I almost wrote to my old tutors to apologise. Many tutors didn’t care anyway. … A tutor in my college was known for exposing himself to some students, and trying to recruit others to the intelligence services. Another harassed so many female students that finally action was taken: he was banned from tutoring women one-on-one. Political correctness was not rampant then.

He justifies this remembrance of things past by pointing out that:

All this might seem like ancient history, except that many of today’s British politicians – David Cameron, Ed Miliband, Michael Gove, George Osborne – were Oxford contemporaries or near-contemporaries of mine.

(although not, apparently, Boris Johnson, subject of the cover story on the FT Weekend Magazine a month earlier – but see Note 4 below) despite the fact that:

Oxford had educated Thatcher (and most other recent British prime ministers) and yet it felt apolitical.

The table below supports the statistical element of this remark:

Some interesting points:

• In 16 of the 18 general elections since 1945, the winning Prime Minister was educated at Oxford.
• Of the 10 PMs elected since 1945, eight went to Oxford.  Of all 13 PMs since the war, nine went to Oxford. 
• On only one occasion, 1951, did an Oxford-educated incumbent, Clement Attlee, lose to a non-Oxford person –the “Former Naval Person”, Winston Churchill. 
• In only one election, 1992, had neither candidate been to Oxford. 

In 2015, it seems highly likely that two Oxford graduates will be in contention for the Prime Ministership: David Cameron as incumbent and Ed Miliband. This has been the case in eight elections since 1945, in six of which the incumbent remained in office (which would be 2015A). The two precedents for Miliband’s becoming PM (2015B) are Edward Heath displacing Harold Wilson in 1970 and Wilson displacing Alec Douglas-Hume in 1964. Miliband’s winning is not impossible, of course, but the second of these precedents is not particularly encouraging, Cameron being a far more credible incumbent than Douglas-Hume.

Notes
(1) Harold Macmillan did not graduate from Oxford, his studies having been interrupted by war service.
(2) Known as University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire in Neil Kinnock’s time there.
(3) Cameron, a Conservative, has been leading a coalition since 2010.
(4) Osborne and Miliband graduated in 1992, Cameron and Gove in 1988 and Johnson in 1987; Kuper circa 1991.


UPDATE 30 OCTOBER

If you found this post interesting, you might like:
Ages at the Audience
and
Top Politicians: Birth Order and Handedness

The Boris and Pippa Show

Pippa Middleton has emerged as a celebrity on the strength of being the younger sister of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and likely Queen consort circa 2045. Last year, Time magazine considered Pippa to be one of the 100 most influential people in the world and, who knows, she might appear on their list again in 2013. Wikipedia currently describes Pippa as a ‘socialite’ and a perusal of the rest of the entry suggests that her principal achievement so far has been the authorship of a guide to party planning, Celebrate. Despite her book’s mixed reviews, for example in the Daily Telegraph, Waitrose Kitchen magazine has recently recruited Pippa as a columnist.

I have already posted about Boris Johnson’s appearances on the BBC last week. A couple of days later a feature article appeared in the Spectator written by Pippa and mostly about her skiing holiday, but:

Back home in London after my Alpine challenges, I can now pursue less demanding hobbies in my spare time, such as ping-pong. I’m informed that Boris Johnson, former editor of this magazine, wants to be ‘whiff-whaff’ world king even more than he wants to be Prime Minister. I’m also told the Johnsons are almost as competitive as the Middletons. So I’d like to lay down a challenge to the Mayor. My only stipulation is that I can use my favourite Dunlop Blackstorm Nemesis bat, which I used when I played in the Milton Keynes U13 National Championships, don’t you know. Bring it on, Boris.

There was a rapid follow-up from the Spectator’s gossip columnist Steerpike:

Game on: Boris has accepted Pippa Middleton’s ‘Whiff-Whaff’ challenge. The Mayor of London has declared:  

‘I’m game if she is. Happy for Pippa to join me on a visit and see the benefits of our £22m Sports Legacy Fund in action.’  

While Pippa would no doubt enjoy that, the Spectator is happy to set up a ping pong table in our garden. Pol Roger will be served.  

UPDATE: Mr Steerpike has confirmation Pippa is still up for the contest. I hear she ‘sensed some nerves’ in Boris’s reply.

I was half-expecting to see some critical reaction among the commentariat along the lines of the importance in a constitutional monarchy of members of the royal family keeping out of politics. Of course, Pippa Middleton is not a member of the royal family, but who would have heard of her if her sister wasn’t? And with Boris Johnson Pippa is linking herself to one of the biggest political personalities in Britain, seriously discussed as a future Conservative Prime Minister. But the issue, if it existed, seems to have been overtaken by events, particularly the death of Lady Thatcher. The funeral next week will be attended by the Queen, her second for a former Prime Minister, the first being Winston Churchill's in 1965.

I wonder if any more will be heard of Pippa playing ping pong with Boris.


UPDATE 3 July 2013

As if in belated answer to my last point, Pippa provided another Diary for the Spectator dated 29 June (which becomes available on-line late on 27 June) and concluded:

The last time I wrote in these pages, I issued a challenge to Boris Johnson to take me on at ping pong. The Mayor said he’d be up for it, and his office duly contacted The Spectator to arrange the details. Team Johnson insisted that the match should be held at a venue of their choosing. I said by all means. And then — nothing. The Spectator has tried to follow up, but now it’s radio silence from the Mayor’s office. Is Boris scared or what? He should be.

Should he? Anyway Pippa’s since been getting lots of attention from another quarter, the Mail newspapers: on 29 June, Does Pippa dress in the dark? … Kate's sister can never get her outfit right; on 30 June, Stay out of the limelight, Kate tells Pippa amid concerns she is courting controversy with her high public profile; on 1 July, Peter McKay asked Isn't it time Pippa put her fame to better use?

Cockerell’s Life of Johnson

On Monday 26th March BBC2 showed Boris Johnson: The Irresistible Rise, a one-hour documentary by Michael Cockerell, the latest in his long series of political profiles. It had been preceded by an interview on Sunday 25th’s The Andrew Marr Show, hosted in absentia by Eddie Mair. The interview was a little abrasive but Mair regularly lurches from the whimsical to the brusque as host of BBC Radio 4’s PM programme. Having revisited some of Johnson’s less glorious moments, Mair asked:

Aren’t you in fact, making up quotes, lying to your party leader, wanting to be part of someone being physically assaulted? You’re a nasty piece of work, aren’t you?

Not so surprising then that the interview generated nearly 600 complaints to the BBC, according to the Press Association.

Before transmission Cockerell provided an account of the making of his programme to the Daily Mail and afterwards he discussed it with Johnson’s Deputy Mayor of London, Munira Mirza on BBC2’s Daily Politics. Having read two biographies (see below) of Boris Johnson, I didn’t feel I learnt very much from The Irresistible Rise. Cockerell seemed to have succumbed to the charm of the Johnson clan and their never-before-seen (or even developed according to Cockerell) home cine-films. The time spent on Johnson’s childhood and days at Eton and Oxford was at the price of only a cursory examination of his time as Mayor of London, and even that emphasised the 2012 Olympics. Whether the “Boris bikes” (Barclays Cycle Hire) have been as good for Londoners as for Barclays, and the value of the “cable car” (Emirates Air Line) never came up.

I did notice that Cockerell referred to Boris’s father, Stanley Johnson’s involvement with MI6 (SIS) which sent me back to the biographies. Andrew Gimson in Boris: The Rise of Boris Johnson (2006 and 2012) said:

Stanley took a second degree in agricultural economics, and in the spring of 1965 he also joined the Foreign Office from which he resigned in the autumn of the same year, because ‘by then the World Bank had come through with an offer for me to go to Washington’. (page 14).

Whereas Sonia Purnell in Just Boris: A Tale of Blond Ambition (2012) was slightly more explicit:

… [Stanley] struggled to launch a career that would put food on the table for his new family. He had tried his hand unsuccessfully at teaching and studying for a Masters in Agricultural Economics before apparently being recruited as a spy and offered, according to his own account, ‘the most intensive training in clandestine techniques known to man’. (Chapter 1)

Purnell referenced Johnson père’s Stanley I Presume, (2009) which I haven’t read and probably won’t. However, he seems to be quite open about his time in SIS, for example, to the Exeter and District (Devon, SW England) branch of the English Speaking Union in February 2012:

Stanley Johnson, our guest speaker, gave a highly entertaining account of his life from his days at Sherborne School and Exeter College, Oxford, to the present day. After leaving school he travelled alone through South America and as an undergraduate rode 4,000 miles on a motorcycle along the Marco Polo route to Afghanistan. Having won a poetry prize at Oxford and being award a Harkness Fellowship to the United States, Stanley embarked on a fascinating career, training as a spy with MI6, working at the World Bank, the United Nations and the European Union.

In the 2005 general election Stanley stood unsuccessfully as Conservative candidate for the nearby Teignbridge constituency.

Reaction in the media to Johnson’s BBC double exposure suggests that nothing much has actually changed - the enthusiasts’ faith didn’t waiver and the unconvinced remained so. Usually the London Evening Standard is firmly enthusiastic, but Simon Jenkins sounded a sceptical note on 26 March:

London’s golden boy is soaring too near the sun. Boris Johnson has been flapping his Icarus wings on television these past two days in his frenetic bid for the Tory leadership. But Sunday’s Andrew Marr Show and last night’s documentary ignored his achievements — or lack of them — as London Mayor, to portray him as a variously flawed celebrity, oozing ambition. As the cameras glared and the questions grew hot, we saw the wax melt and the feathers start to fall. As they fell, I began to wonder whether any clear political ideology motivated England’s most famous “toff on the make”.

And in the same paper the next day, Andrew Neather was harsher:

He could fudge the awkward timing of his mayoral term finishing in 2016: I expect him to pick up a safe seat in 2015 (Paddy Power is offering odds on which one) and fob Londoners off with the fiction that he can do both jobs for a year. But as Johnson proved when he was an MP, he doesn’t have time for the hard graft or detail of the Commons. He is the opposite of a team player: he failed to build the alliances any leader needs, while proving an embarrassment even in the Westminster McJobs of shadow arts and higher education minister. And the sorts of failings that he manages to laugh off in City Hall, with its minimal media scrutiny and paucity of heavyweight opponents, would quickly ensnare him on the front benches.  

In fairness, some Conservative MPs realise this. He can expect a vigorous “Stop Boris” campaign. That will not prevent plenty of Tories backing his blond ambition: he is the darling of the party’s grassroots and media supporters. But if the Tories think Boris is the answer to their problems, they’re asking the wrong question.

On 28 March the Standard seemed to pull itself together behind its chosen one, with a front page story by Joe Murphy, Voters say Boris Johnson must lead Tories. Boris Johnson would smash Ed Miliband’s lead in the opinion polls if he took over as Conservative leader, an exclusive poll reveals today. Though the poll data below quoted by the Standard (LES) from a YouGov survey of 1,867 adults online from March 26-27 didn’t exactly bear this out:

According to the Standard “A Boris leadership would lure a third of Ukip supporters to the Tories from Nigel Farage’s party” but there were no statistics provided to support this. Another poll of 1867 adults carried out by YouGov on the same dates and reported in the Sun showed the above “Headline Voting Intentions” (for which presumably those polled are not reminded of the current leadership’s names) with the now usual double figure Labour lead. In this poll within the 19% ‘Other’, 13% were Ukip, 4% SNP or Green and 1% other ‘Other’.

One of the shrewdest comments about Boris Johnson that I’ve read so far comes from Rod Liddle in the Spectator (30 March issue):

To give the bloke credit, at least Boris doesn’t pretend that he is One of Us, that he has had to struggle to achieve the position in life he now occupies — i.e., Mayor of London and heir to Downing Street. Because of course he hasn’t — and neither has Clegg, or Cameron, or Osborne or any of them; it has been a gentle and easy elision from top public school to Oxbridge to running the entire country, the passage eased by immense affluence, ready-made connections and, often enough, when all this has proved insufficient, a little bit of -Daddy’s help. This stuff, the Eton-Bullingdon-king-of-the-world business, bothers me, and it may well do for Boris in the end, when the people of the country have had enough of it all. It is not a good way to run a country, as indeed we are now seeing.  

But still, as a person, and shorn of all this stuff — if that’s possible — Boris is a more likeable politician than most we have around at the moment. If the chaotic buffoonery is all an act, then it is a good act, and an endearing act. He seems to me a less nasty piece of work than most of his Conservative political rivals.

What doesn’t seem to have appeared so far is an informed logical analysis of the timing issues. Presumably if the Tories are going to change leader before the 2015 election, they almost certainly have to do it by the end of this year. So how does Johnson get to be an MP before then? If he leaves it any later, he has to wait for the outcome of that election whether he stands as an MP in 2015 or not. 

If Cameron wins in 2015, or even continues in a coalition, he will almost certainly go when he chooses, say 2016 or 2017. And his successor will probably be someone who has played a part in achieving what looks at present to be an unlikely success and will almost certainly be someone who was an MP between 2010 and 2015.

If the Tories lose they will have to choose a leader who has the stamina to be an effective leader of the opposition to a Labour government, or Labour/ Lib Dem coalition, for five years and lead them to victory in 2020 (when Boris will be 56).

Can Johnson be both Mayor and MP at the same time? If he does try that on, would there be a backlash at the next mayoral election in 2016 or even in the London parliamentary seats in 2015? If he stands down as Mayor, who takes over - Munira Mirza? Or does there have to be a mayoral by-election which Labour could end up winning in the run-up to 2015? Mirza, who has a PhD in sociology, to judge from her showing on the Daily Politics (see above) could go far, but has a low profile so far.


UPDATE 2 June

Johnson's two biographers debate his chances in today's Independent on Sunday.

Disraeli reminds me of who?

In the Daily Mail on 6 October, the historian Dominic Sandbrook set out to explain how inappropriate it was for Ed Miliband in his Labour Party Conference speech to attempt to annex Disraeli and his ‘One nation’. The Mail subeditors, rarely inclined to terseness, headlined the piece Red Ed’s One Nation hero was a vacuous, egotistical hypocrite who sent British soldiers to die needlessly in foreign wars. (Remind you of anyone?). This was presumably intended to point the reader in the direction of Tony Blair. However Sandbrook had a different target, offering a scathing rejection of Disraeli the man and of ‘One Nation’ and obviously admiring his rival, Gladstone:

… the One Nation slogan is merely an excuse for woolly, weedy, do-nothing politics. As the Labour firebrand Michael Foot once sagely remarked, if you sit in the middle of the road long enough, eventually you will be run over. So if I were David Cameron next week, I would not bother trying to reclaim Disraeli. Instead, I would proclaim my attachment to a far greater Victorian politician: the Liberal statesman William Gladstone. Given that he is already in bed with the Lib Dems, Mr Cameron might shudder at the thought of invoking a Liberal hero. But he would be in good company: no less a figure than Mrs Thatcher, after all, once told her conference that ‘if Mr Gladstone were alive today he would apply to join the Conservative Party’. Although Gladstone and Disraeli are forever associated in the public imagination, they could hardly have been more different. Disraeli was funnier, more flamboyant and more dashing. But on almost every count that actually matters, Gladstone was far superior. He was a more convinced reformer, a more imaginative chancellor and a dedicated public servant who genuinely cared about the plight of the poor.

On the way to this conclusion Disraeli’s shortcomings were made clear:

He was a brilliant speaker, an accomplished novelist and a flamboyant showman.  

At bottom, Benjamin Disraeli was interested only in Benjamin Disraeli. His entire political career was devoted to his own advancement; it is not for nothing that he famously boasted of having climbed ‘to the top of the greasy pole’.  

As a young man in the 1830s, he tried to make his name as a novelist. But when money and fame were slow to materialise, he decided on politics instead.  

It was entirely typical of his cynical style, though, that once the Corn Laws had bitten the dust, he made no effort to restore them. Throughout his career, he saw principle as subordinate to tactical self-interest.  

Indeed, it is telling that like those other shameless mountebanks David Lloyd George and Tony Blair, Disraeli loved the glamour and intrigue of military adventures abroad.  

It was little wonder his critics thought Disraeli represented all that was worst about imperialism. But the truth was that, in the absence of any concrete policies or principles, he instinctively fell back on the basest jingoism. In 1876, he even conferred on Queen Victoria the title of Empress of India, to the outrage of commentators who objected that such tawdry baubles were basically un-British. It was pure Disraeli: eye-catching, vainglorious, utterly without shame and ultimately demeaning to all concerned. For Professor Parry [Disraeli’s most recent biographer, the eminent Cambridge historian Jon Parry], Disraeli’s fundamental quality was his ‘astonishing egotism’.  

And his personal life, which was full of affairs, fell a long way short of Ed Miliband’s conspicuous uxoriousness. When Disraeli died in 1881, Gladstone nicely summed him up as ‘all show and no substance’.

The politician this description brought into my mind certainly wasn’t Ed Miliband, or David Cameron, or Tony Blair. I'm afraid it was Boris Johnson!

What’s in a PM’s name?

The 2010 Coalition has now reached the halfway point of its existence, and there is, as yet, no significantly good news about the economy. The Conservatives have decided to move onto different ground and attempt to convince the electorate that Ed Miliband lacks the qualities perceived as being required of a Prime Minister. This was, according to the Financial Times (£), a stratagem decided on at Chequers on 17 September, and, according to the Guardian, encouraged by private opinion polling. So, never slow off the mark, Boris Johnson delivered an attack in the Daily Telegraph on 1 October which was ad hominem to start with:

... a total disappointment; and as leader of a major political party, he looks to me like a drip of the first order. According to yesterday’s YouGov, the Tories are only five points behind Labour — a measly five points, in the depths of what has been the longest and deepest recession many people can remember, when George Osborne is accused of slashing public services, and when many families have experienced a real deterioration in their standard of living. When Neil Kinnock was doing Ed’s job in the early Nineties, he managed to go about 24 points clear of John Major — and he still lost. What is wrong with Ed? The Tory strategists say it is all about his look, his manner, a certain teenage gawkiness compared to Dave’s look of Regency confidence; and that is certainly borne out by the polls. Dave wins big on who the voters both want to be PM – and, crucially, who they think will be PM.

and then goes on to policies:

Elections in this country, especially general elections, are not just about personalities. They are about programmes, about where you want to take the country, and it is here that Ed is getting it hopelessly wrong. Some Labour top brass accuse him of a do-nothing strategy, of trying to sneak into Downing Street with an exhibition of masterly inactivity. If only that were true. In so far as he has done anything with the Labour Party since taking over from Gordon Brown, Ed has moved it to the Left. He is back in the pocket of the union barons, .. etc etc

Johnson optimistically concludes:

Over the next two and a half years the most likely political outcome is surely this: that the economy will steadily recover, and the signs of hope that we are now seeing will multiply. After enduring a long period of unpopularity, during which they did difficult but sensible things, the Conservatives will be rewarded for their patience. I have said it once and I say it again. David Cameron will be returned with a thumping majority in 2015.

Paul Goodman (a former Tory MP and executive editor of Conservative Home) explained in the FT on 1 October that the Tories have a trump card in the form of Ed Miliband. He doesn’t see Miliband’s leftwardness as a problem, in fact

“Mr Miliband is safe to continue criticising capitalism if he closes down his risks on tax and spend by choosing to tax something unpopular, like utilities. But not to worry: … these gathering clouds have a silver lining for the Tories – namely, the personality of the Labour leader himself. The poll ratings of the two main party leaders convey a clear message: better strong and smug (Mr Cameron) than weak and weird (Mr Miliband). Leader ratings aren’t always decisive in elections; Lady Thatcher was less popular than Jim Callaghan in 1979. However, they matter, and Mr Miliband’s biggest problem, like that of the Tories, is less one of policy than of people. Or rather of one person. Himself.

Whether the Tories' tactic will pay off or whether, as C4News’ Gary Gibbon suggests, Miliband will be trained to subdue his professorial geekiness and mannerisms at least enough to disarm the voters, we shall see, particularly when at the pre-election TV debates. But there is one aspect of Miliband that can be put into some sort of historical context now: his surname.

I remember reading, but regrettably cannot now source, a report that after the death of their father, Ralph, David and Ed Miliband were the only adults with that surname (other than their mother and wives who acquired it by marriage). It certainly is unusual, much more unusual than those of nearly all British prime ministers in the last 200 years. From Guardian and Wikipedia data, it can be seen that 34 different men and one woman have been Prime Minister since 1812. I have classified their surnames under four headings:

16 English Common - as seen every day on the side of lorries and vans eg Robinson, Russell, Wilson

 8 English Uncommon – but not unsettling for the average voter eg Wellesley, Primrose, Asquith, Attlee

10 Scottish, Welsh, Irish – eg Balfour, Macmillan, Cameron (but not Brown)

 1 Exotic – Disraeli

(There were four PMs with hyphenated surnames, three of them Scottish; Gascoyne-Cecil has been put in English Uncommon; the unhyphenated Bonar Law again is Scottish.)

In 2015 Miliband would be only the second PM in over two hundred years with an Exotic surname. In his day Disraeli only had to satisfy a small and relatively sophisticated franchise. Since 1930, essentially the start of the modern franchise, there have been 10 PMs with English surnames, five with Scottish and one Irish (Callaghan).  But so what in 2015?  After all, the 21st century may, for all we know, see an Umunna, Patel or Singh in Number 10.

 ADDENDUM 2 OCTOBER

In his speech to the Labour Party Conference today, Miliband mentioned Disraeli five times (and "One Nation" 46 times).  He also said:

My conviction is rooted in my family’s story, a story that starts 1,000 miles from here, because the Miliband’s haven’t sat under the same oak tree for the last five hundred years. Both of my parents’ came to Britain as immigrants, Jewish refugees from the Nazis. I know I would not be standing on this stage today without the compassion and tolerance of our great country. Great Britain.

I'm not sure the oak tree remark was very sensible; it may come back to haunt him.