This time next week, if the opinion polls and experts are to be trusted – and they seldom are – Boris Johnson will be prime minister. It is perhaps not quite what he was aiming for as a boy – then he wanted to become King of the World – but it is the prize he has settled for. He has had his eyes on Downing Street at least since he took the safe Tory seat of Henley in June 2001. He was editor of the Spectator at the time and I was his deputy.
The first hint of his true, long-term ambition came shortly after he was elected, when, at an editorial conference, someone made a rather wild suggestion (perhaps that George W Bush might one day launch a never-ending war in the Middle East). Whatever the precise nature of the suggestion, it did not find much favour in the editor’s office. Then someone sighed and said: “Oh, sure, and Boris could become Prime Minister.” Everyone laughed, including Boris, but there was a hint of pain in his eyes. He obviously did not find the possibility of his occupying the highest office in the land something to snigger about. Nor, now, do we …
