december 9–22, 2019 | new york 49the country’s ruling class than a stiff-upper-lip sense of propriety.
It’s all there at the beginning at Eton. In his sparkling 2006
biography, his friend Andrew Gimson dug up Boris’s old school
reports. They might have been written by his often-frustrated col-
leagues in politics: “Boris’s favored pace is the amble (with the odd
last- minute sprint), which has been good enough so far, and I sup-
pose enables him to smell the flowers along the way. It’s time,
though, that with a greater commitment to the real business of
scholarship ... Boris could turn him-
self into a classicist of real distinction.”
It didn’t quite turn out that way. A
year later, this gentle critique harsh-
ened: “Boris really has adopted a dis-
gracefully cavalier attitude to his clas-
sical studies ... I think he honestly
believes that it is churlish of us not to
regard him as an exception, one who
should be free of the networkof obli-
gation which binds everyone else.”
And yet somehow Boris leveraged
this indolence and incompetence to
gain popularity. Gimson’s biography
notes that he couldn’t be bothered to
remember his lines in a school play, so
he posted them around the stage and
rushed from prompt to prompt, gar-
bling most of them, evoking howls of
laughter from the crowd andintense
frustration from his fellow actors. He
acted in a Molière play in French but
with an atrocious English accent that
also stole the show. He madehis lazi-
ness into a joke—and discovered that
this made people laugh and warm to
him. It was at Eton too thathe first
honed his signature look with his blond
mop and scruffy, ill-fitting clothes. And
it was at Eton that his ferocious bursts
of energy, optimism, and enthusiasm
became better known: “On the rugby
field Boris was an absolute berserker,”
one report noted. “There was a lot of
yelling and hurling of himselfreckless
of life and limb, both his own and other
people’s.” Even as a teenager, he wanted
to be remembered for his passion for
sex. In the equivalent of a yearbook,
Borisposted a picture of himself with two scarves and a machine
gunanda pledge to make “more notches on my phallocratic phallus.”
It remainsa rather staggering fact today that no one actually knows
howmanychildren Boris has, and he point-blank refuses to discuss
anydetailsof his private life in public.
AtOxford, it was the same performance. I overlapped with him
fora year(1983–84) and, like him, was president of the Oxford
Union.Compared with most of the toffs, he seemed to meendear-
ing.Somany other Etonians downplayed their upper-class origins,
becamelefties, smoked pot, softened their accents, and wore
clothes indistinguishable from anyone else. But Boris wore his
classas a clown costume—never hiding it but subtly mocking it
witha performance that was as eccentric as it was self-aware. He
madeothers feel as if they were in on a joke he had created, which
somewhat defused the class resentment he might otherwise have
beensubject to and which, like many from the lower ranks of Brit-
ishsociety, I mostly shared.
ButI gave him a pass because he was so splendidly colorful. In theworking poor and aspiring middle classes, tough on immigration
and crime, but much more generous in spending on hospitals and
schools and science. Or so he says for now. And if he succeeds—by
no means a sure thing, though at this point it almost seems fool-
ish to bet against him—he won’t just be charting a new future for
the U.K. but pioneering a path for other Western parties of the
center right confronted by the rise of populist extremism.
THE PARALLELS WITH DONALD
Trump are at first hard to resist: two
well-off jokers with bad hair playing
populist. But Trump sees himself, and
is seen by his voters, as an outsider,
locked out of the circles he wants to be
in, the heir to a real-estate fortune with
no political experience and a crude
sense of humor, bristling with resent-
ment,andwitha backgroundinreality
television.He despisesconstitutional
norms,displaysnounderstandingof
history orculture,andhasa coldstreak
ofcrueltydeepinhissoul.Borisis
almosttheoppositeofthis,hiscareera
near-classicexampleofBritishEstab-
lishmentinsiderism withhisdeep
learning,re verencefortradition,anda
capacitytolaughat himselfthat is rare
inmostegosasbigashis.In 2015,after
TrumpdescribedpartsofLondonas
no-goareasbecauseofIslamistinflu-
ence,Johnsonaccusedhimof“aquite
stupefyingignorancethat makeshim,
frankly, unfit toholdtheofficeof presi-
dent.”Evenaspresident,Trumpis
drivenprimarilybyresentment.Boris,
asalways,is animatedbyentitlement.
(Thevibeofhispitchisalmost that
peoplelikehimshouldbeincharge.)
AlexanderBorisdePfeffelJohnson
waseducatedat Eton(like at least 20
primeministersbeforehim),thenat
Oxford(like 27).He waspresidentof
theOxfordUnion,theuniversity’sleg-
endary debatingsociety,like prime
ministersHeath,Asquith,andGlad-
stone.From 1999 to2005,hewasthe
editorof the191-year-oldSpectator,the
eclectic,Tory-leaningmagazine,a positionthat hasoftenbeena
stepping-stonetohighpoliticaloffice.He hasbeena memberof
Parliamenttwice,from 200 1 to 2008 andsince 20 15.He was
mayorofLondonfrom 2008 to 20 16,presidingovertheOlympics.
Thenhewasforeignsecretaryfrom 2016 to 20 18.Thisrésuméis
closetoa parodyoftheBritishelite—aboutasfarfromTrumpasit
is possibletoimagine.
That Johnsonsometimesappearsasanoutsideris largelya func-
tionofhispersonalityandhowhehasskillfullymarketedit:
extremelysmart butconstitutionallylazy;upperclasswitha real
feelforanddelightinordinary life;sexuallypromiscuoustoan
almostcomicaldegree;a defenderofrulesaslongasheis entitled
tobreakthemfromtimetotime;a humorist andpunmerchant
whohassucceededinmakinghisownaristocraticidiosyncrasies
partofthejoke;a ruthlesscareeristwitha capacity fordeceit
and forgiveness;anda narcissistnooneshouldevenbegintotrust.
Butofcourse,asloathasaristocratsofpreviousgenerationswould
havebeentoadmitit,allofthismay beevenmore characteristicof
2019: At the NATO summit.2012: Promoting the London Olympics as mayor.