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Cameron’s gamble paid off in Boris election
“What do you do with a problem like Boris?” Tory leader David Cameron is said to have cried a couple of years ago, following a typical gaffe from the occasional host of BBC’s
Have I Got News For You, whose fame rested not on his work as an MP but on the shambolic impression his TV persona left on viewers.
Some people queried his commitment to his day job of representing his constituents but mostly viewers, constituents and those who knew his reputation only from the considerable news coverage he attracted were content to laugh with him or, more often, at his antics.
Although his claim to fame appeared to be a talent for putting his foot in his mouth, or telling it as it is and to heck with political correctness, depending on whether listeners were in the pro or anti Boris camps, old lags in the House of Commons thought him a clever, promising politician who was ruining his future development and career prospects by playing to the gallery for laughs.
Problem
So it tells us something about David Cameron that he should have solved the Boris problem as he did.
Instead of giving him a dressing-down, followed by a job of mind-numbing boredom, the Tory leader gambled and handed him the chance to become even better-known and potentially a huge factor in determining the future of the Conservative party itself.
What we don’t know is the reasoning behind his boss’s decision. Was David Cameron being cynical in figuring that Ken Livingstone would be re-elected and that having a run at the job would either kill or
cure Boris? Or did the Tory leader see through the TV persona to the other, substantial, side of London’s new mayor?
This other Boris has been described by a columnist for The Spectator magazine, which has flourished under his editorship, as being hopeless at counting paper clips but excellent at identifying, and sticking to, a strategy.
So it may be that the result of the mayoral election tells us as much about the Tory leader as it does about Boris Johnson.
Is the innocent-looking Mr Cameron a lot tougher than he looks — and more imaginative? Did he allow Boris to jump into the deep end of a multi-billion pound budget, and a very complex community, knowing that if he lost the Tory party itself wouldn’t be hurt all that much because Boris is such a “character?”
Boo-boos
But, just in case, and to ensure minimal friendly fire damage from potential Boris boo-boos, the Tory leader committed personal effort, heavyweight political minders and, I suspect, diary and personal assistants to get him to the right place, as close to the right time as possible with a carefully produced brief on what not to say.
In doing this, the Tories shot their opponents’ fox. Polly Toynbee, a respected political and social affairs journalist, made this plain by her obvious frustration at being unable to get at the real Boris. She described him as shambolic, disorganised, always running two hours late, arriving at meetings with the wrong speech, not knowing who he was addressing.
While it’s true that during the campaign, as always, he looked as though he’d been dragged through a hedge backwards and although his hair looked as though a bird might be nesting in it, when he made his acceptance speech as the newly-elected mayor, he hit all the right buttons, with sincerity and what sounded like humility and love for London.
With good personal back-up, Boris may surprise us. Londoners have voted for him on trust, for a substantial change of substance in policy, rather than a smooth PR-conceived style makeover.
Could this be the new politics?
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Margo
MacDonald
