2 **^ Wednesday 24 July 2019 The Daily Telegraph
ON JEREMY HUNT
‘You’ve been friendly, you’ve been
good natured, you’ve been a font of
excellent ideas, all of which I intend
to steal forthwith’
ON HIS VICTORY‘I know that there will be people
around the place who will question
the wisdom of your decision’
ON CONSERVATISM‘If you look at the history of the last
200 years you will see that it is we
Conservatives who have had the best
insights, I think, into human nature’
ON THAT ACRONYM‘Some wag has already pointed out
that deliver, unite and defeat was not
the perfect acronym ... but they forgot
the final “e” my friends, for energise’
Victory for Johnson
Continued from Page 1
Mr Hunt and Liz Truss,
now class themselves as
Brexiteers despite having
voted Remain in the EU
referendum. There were
reports yesterday that
two-thirds could be Brexi-
teers, but sources close to
Mr Johnson stressed that
he wanted to unify the party and
suggested the majority will be lower.
Mr Johnson will appoint a “Cabinet
for modern Britain” as he tries to
change the image of the party with the
highest ever number of black and
minority ethnic ministers and a higher
number of female ministers.
Ms Patel, who was sacked as interna-
tional development secretary by Mrs
May after holding meetings in Israel
without telling her, has been tipped as
a possible home secretary but is said to
covet the role of party chairman.
Mr Sharma, seen as one of the most
capable ministers currently in a junior
role, is expected to be promoted to a
full Cabinet position. Other “rising
Cabinet to
have Brexit
majority
and ethnic
diversity
stars” likely to be given promotions
include Rishi Sunak, the local govern-
ment minister, and former culture
minister Tracey Crouch, who resigned
over government policy on fixed-odds
betting terminals last year. Oliver
Dowden, 40, a junior minister at the
Cabinet Office, and 37-year-old Robert
Jenrick, a Treasury minister, will also
be given promotions.
The FTSE 100 index rose on the an-
nouncement of Mr Johnson’s victory,
and finished the day half a percentage
point higher than it had started.
Key allies of Mr Johnson said yester-
day he would call a halt to domestic
legislation until Brexit is delivered
after inheriting a Commons working
majority of just two. It means that key
pledges such as bringing in a new
points-based immigration system will
have to wait.
One key member of Mr Johnson’s
team said: “Getting Brexit done is sim-
ple – we just don’t bring any legislation
between now and the time we leave.
“As long as the Commons doesn’t
bring him down with a vote of confi-Boris barely put a foot wrong to fulfil his ‘destiny’ of No 10
A
s campaign slogans go, its
acronym didn’t sound like
a winning formula. But in
sticking to the “DUD”
method – Deliver Brexit,
Unite the country and
Defeat Corbyn – Boris Johnson won
the Tory leadership race.
Devised by campaign strategist
Mark Fullbrook, whose business
partner Sir Lynton Crosby invented
Theresa May’s now ironic “strong
and stable” mantra, the key to Mr
Johnson’s success was that he never
really strayed from DUD – even when
answering questions on completely
unrelated subjects.
It was quite a feat for a man who
was once the butt of Mrs May’s jokes
at her first Conservative Party
conference in 2016, when she jibed:
“Can Boris Johnson stay on message
for a full four days? Just about.”
In fact the former foreign secretary
largely managed not to put a foot
wrong for an entire six weeks.
Having kept a low profile during the
first phase of the campaign to win over
Tory MPs, critics were hoping the
gaffe-prone former London mayor
would slip on a banana skin during
one of the 16 Tory hustings.
But bar a bruising grilling by
Andrew Neil and a verbal fisticuffs
with Jeremy Hunt during a heated ITV
debate, Mr Johnson largely emerged
unscathed – sticking to his mantra of
delivering Brexit “do or die”.
Indeed at times the hustings
became so repetitive that there was
barely a Conservative member who
girlfriend, Carrie Symonds, 31, the
Tories’ former head of communica-
tions, with winning over MPs,
particularly helping to convince
women that he had reformed. She also
helped to smarten up his image.
Indeed it was notable that while
Mr Hunt insisting on addressing Tory
members with his jacket off and
sleeves rolled up, Blair/Cameron-style,
Mr Johnson remained suited.
Not that it was all plain sailing. As
the campaign shifted to winning over
Conservative members, it was hit with
the bombshell of Mr Johnson and Ms
Symonds’s blazing late night row that
had been recorded by neighbours and
handed to The Guardian.
Headlines that Ms Symonds had
been heard yelling at Mr Johnson “get
off me” and “get out of my flat” after he
spilt red wine on her white sofa could
not have come at a worse time.
Then staged photographs emerged
of the couple gazing at one another
over a picnic table in an undisclosed
rural location. It had been hoped thegrainy mobile phone pictures would
move attention on from the torrid
headlines, yet the photo “exclusive”
appeared to raise more questions, over
who authorised it, than answers.
As the story stretched to day four,
Mr Fullbrook was drafted in to
“professionalise” the campaign, while
former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith
was appointed campaign chairman.
The strategy worked and accompa-
nied by his personal photographer,
Andrew Parsons, Team Boris made
sure the optics around Mr Johnson
were pitch perfect for media output.
An image of Mr Johnson having his
nose licked by a puppy called Lucky
managed to detract attention from a
bizarre interview where he admitted
to spending his spare time painting
models of buses from old wooden
crates. In the same interview, with
Talk Radio, he declared the UK would
be leaving the EU on Oct 31 “do or die,
come what may”.
It was music to the ears of Tory
Leavers. While Mr Hunt’s teaminsisted they were “winning the
hustings”, in fact they were really only
ever playing the straight man to Mr
Johnson’s entertaining star turn.
Energetic, focused and clearly the
more committed to delivering Brexit
in 100 days, it was DUD all the way for
Mr Johnson, who also appeared more
convincing when it came to his
rhetoric around defeating Jeremy
Corbyn. While Mr Hunt referred to
Labour as the “crocodile lurking
beneath”, Mr Johnson was able to
constantly remind his audience that he
beat the “far more wily” Ken Living-
stone not once but twice in London.
That is not to say that Mr Hunt did
not give a good account of himself, it
just wasn’t what the majority of
members wanted to hear.
Within hours of the ballot papers
being sent out to the 160,
members on July 6, many had already
crossed the Boris box and sent it back.
It meant that the ITV debate on July
9 came a little too late. Although the
media appeared to suggest Mr Hunt
had won the debate, some members
appeared to dislike his personal
attacks on Mr Johnson, who as well as
resolutely refusing to discuss his
private life, also consistently stopped
short of criticising the opposition.
Mr Johnson’s BBC run-in with Neil
on July 12 was also deemed too late to
influence the outcome, although a clip
of the would-be prime minister
admitting he did not know what was in
paragraph 5C of GATT 24, the World
Trade Association Clause at the heart
of his Brexit plan, has gained notoriety.
Mr Fullbrook’s own internal polling
suggested that Mr Johnson was set to
win as much as 71 per cent of the vote.
In the end he had to settle for 66 per
cent – still a convincing victory over
Mr Hunt, who would have required a
Churchillian effort to beat the man
long destined for life behind Downing
Street’s black door.Jeremy Hunt
was really
only ever
playing thestraight man
to Johnson’sentertaining
star turndence we are leaving on October 31.”
A Cabinet source said: “He can still
stick to some of his spending commit-
ments on education and policing be-
cause not all of them depend on new
laws being passed.” Mr Johnson was
given a standing ovation as his victory
was announced at the Queen Elizabeth
II Conference Centre in Westminster,
with his father Stanley, brother Jo and
sister Rachel there to cheer him on.
His partner, Carrie Symonds, how-ever, did not attend, as the couple have
decided she should remain in the back-
ground until Mr Johnson has settled in.
He was later given a raucous recep-
tion by the 1922 Committee of back-
bench Tory MPs, where he said an early
general election was “not a priority”.
Mr Johnson surprised Tory MPs by
making the Remain-voting Mark
Spencer Chief Whip his first Cabinet
appointment. He believes that by ap-
pointing a Remainer to run party disci-pline, he will have the best chance of
reining in Europhiles.
Jeremy Hunt is said to have made
clear to Mr Johnson during a 15-minute
meeting that he was willing to accept
only three roles: his present job of For-
eign Secretary, Chancellor or Deputy
Prime Minister. According to The
Times, Mr Johnson offered him the po-
sition of Defence Secretary, which Mr
Hunt refused because it was consid-
ered a “notional demotion”.‘In a new
spirit of
can-do ...
we are onceagain going
to believe in
ourselves’‘Boris will
build a
Cabinet ...
that trulyreflects
modern
Britain’hadn’t heard Mr Johnson’s Mars Bar
joke – referring to the Project Fear
suggestion that a no-deal Brexit would
lead to a shortage of “the very snacks
upon which our children’s lives
depend”. “Where there’s a will, there’s
a whey,” he told delighted crowds.
His rival Jeremy Hunt’s own
Groundhog Day moment came with his
repeated assurances that he was the
best person to negotiate Brexit
because he started his own business.
At one point, during a hustings in
Carlisle, presenter Iain Dale became so
exasperated, he jibed: “Is it true you
were once an entrepreneur?”
Forty-three days on from the
moment 10 prospective prime
ministers entered the leadership race
on June 10, it’s easy to forget that Mr
Johnson first had the Herculean task of
winning over the parliamentary party.
Having been long ago advised by
Sir Lynton to “show MPs more love”,
Mr Johnson appointed Gavin William-
son, the former chief whip, and Grant
Shapps, the former party chairman, to
spearhead his whipping campaign.
With Mr Williamson working on
the waverers, based on complex
spreadsheets devised by Mr Shapps,
the double act proved formidable.
According to one Tory MP: “Gavin
and ‘Spreadsheet’ Shapps were
absolutely forensic. They literally
had detailed intel on each and every
Tory MP – who they had said they
might support ... who they might
consider supporting if their first
choice fell out of the race.”
Mr Shapps was so sure what the
result of the ballots would be that he
wrote the number down in a sealed
envelope for Mr Johnson to open after
it had been announced. He correctly
predicted that Mr Johnson would win
143 votes in the third round and 157 in
the fifth. He finished on 160 votes
compared with Jeremy Hunt’s 77.
Insiders also credit Mr Johnson’sThe campaign
By Camilla Tominey
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Boris Johnson’s
campaign bounced
back thanks to
well-judged photo
opportunities
despite the
much-publicised
row with his
girlfriend, Carrie
Symonds, belowANDREW PARSONS/I-IMAGES; LNPANDREW PARSONS/I-IMAGES; GETTY IMAGESРЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS