What would happen if Boris Johnson became Prime Minister? Could be become Prime Minister? That's been the question on the lips of many commentators in the last few weeks. Edwina Currie certainly thinks he could do it. In an exclusive extract from Prime Minister Boris, Sam Macrory tells us how the loveable blonde could begin his quest.
David Cameron has spent the last few years heading up a minority government, after Nick Clegg was forced to resign over national security issues. After embarrassing defeats for the government in the Commons, spurred on by Tim Farron’s Liberal Democrats, the general election has, once again, delivered a hung parliament. As coalition talks begin between Labour and the Lib Dems, one man is plotting his own victory…
The result shocked politicians and pundits alike. Labour secured 293 seats, the Tories 261, and the Lib Dems 37. Chris Huhne’s Eastleigh seat fell to the Tories, two UKIP MPs, from Essex and Kent, entered Parliament, while the Greens gained two more MPs, in Norwich and Oxford, to join Caroline Lucas at Westminster. Incredibly, there was no clear winner, so despite Liberal Democrat losses a second hung Parliament once again saw their leader play the part of kingmaker.
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At the BBC’s Millbank studios the following morning, Tom Bradby – who had succeed Andrew Marr earlier in the year – was preparing for his regular Sunday morning show. Post-election analysis would dominate the programme, but an upbeat interview with the Mayor of London should provide some light relief.
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‘It has been a terrible few months for your party. What will you be doing to help?’ he asked. Without hesitation, Boris answered: ‘The answer, of course, Tom, is whatever I can. I’m a Conservative mayor and a member of the Conservative Party. I love my party, and I want it to be in government.’ Naturally, Bradby then asked the question which Boris had straight-batted away many times. ‘And could you be the man to lead it there?’ Apparently off the cuff, Boris replied: ‘As I said, Tom, I’ll do whatever I can. Whatever my party asks me to do, however my country needs me, I am merely a humble servant.’ Watching, Guto Harri, Boris’ press chief, mouthed one word: ‘Perfect.’
Just one week later, on the back of a series of pleas from Tory associations and MPs, Boris resigned as Mayor of London. ‘For the good of my country,’ he declared, ‘It is time to leave City Hall and return to Westminster.’ Conveniently enough, the general election count in Sheffield Hallam had been declared null after pro-PR campaigners had set fire to a pile of ballot boxes. The courts demanded a recount, and to add to Boris’ good fortune the Tory candidate stood aside to create a vacancy. ‘Don’t worry, Dad. This will work out well for both of us’, Boris told his father, Stanley, who had sacrificed his long-held dreams of becoming an MP.
As Cameron began to panic, his ever-loyal spinner Gabby Bertin busily spread tales of Boris’s colourful private life, but nothing seemed to stick. In homage to Alan Clark, Boris told hustings meetings that he had ‘whole cupboards of them’ when asked about the skeletons in his private life. ‘I’ve said this before: there will be the odd indiscretion, but then who can’t say that? We’ve all done things which we wished we probably hadn’t.’
The threat to Cameron was clear. Boris, a former schoolmate and Bullingdon Club drinking partner of the ex Prime Minister, knew far too much. As for Boris’ colourful CV, the blue-rinsers in the party loved him for it. A bit of back-to-basics mischief was to be forgiven, and anyway, his long-suffering wife Marina was always by his side. He narrowly edged out Chris Huhne – still denying newspaper reports of alleged speeding offences – to victory in Sheffield, and just twenty-four hours later the Boris bandwagon rolled into Westminster. He didn’t wait to catch his breath.
‘I’m often accused of not being serious. Well, I’ve never been more serious about anything’, he announced as he arrived on the steps to Parliament. ‘Some people write down their dreams on the back of envelopes. Well, I’d decided in the womb before I could, er, write. How we failed – twice – to beat a discredited Labour Party is beyond me. Do we want to win? If the answer is yes, and I jolly well hope it is, then it is time to think again about the journey we must take to get us to that green and pleasant land.’
The phone banks were firmly in place and the support had been primed: that evening fifteen Conservative MPs published a letter calling on Cameron to resign, including backbench rebel leader Mark Pritchard, Boris’ brother Jo, Theresa Villiers – still smarting at failing to make cabinet under Cameron – and Iain Duncan Smith, whose welfare reforms had been repeatedly undermined by former Chancellor George Osborne. Boris led the news bulletins and dominated the next day’s papers: ‘The Boris Factor!’ shouted The Sun. ‘Time to get serious’, announced the Telegraph. ‘Better late than never’, declared the Mail. Guto had been busy.
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‘What on earth are you doing? You’re tearing the party apart. You had a perfectly good job. Don’t do this to me!’ Cameron was screaming into his mobile phone, Bertin looking on nervously. ‘Yes, you bloody well are. This is about you, your ego, and getting one over me. Just stop it.’ He resisted throwing the phone at the door – but only just – and turned to his worried-looking aide. ‘What? What are you looking at?’ he shouted at Bertin. ‘This isn’t about me. I am thinking about the bloody party.’ He looked close to tears.
But as the grassroots membership flocked to Boris, and the majority of the party’s MPs followed suit, Cameron was left with no choice but to call a leadership contest. The voting was worse than he could have expected, with Cameron forced to drop out after the first round, leaving Boris to romp to victory against the unpopular pair of George Osborne and Liam Fox. At that year’s delayed Conservative Party conference, Boris was unveiled as the party’s new leader. Walking on to the stage to the strains of the Beatles’ ‘Here Comes the Sun’ – Boris’s ‘fantastically optimistic’ choice on Desert Island Discs seven years previously – he sent delegates into wild delight as he declared: ‘Mr Miliband – we’re coming for you. Mr Fallen, er, Farron – watch your step. The Conservative Party is back and ready for business.’