Sky Views: What I've learned about Boris Johnson since we first met 30 years ago

Sky Views: What I've learned about Boris Johnson since we first met 30 years ago

Boris Johnson has had parallel careers as a journalist and politician, so I've known him slightly better than Jeremy Corbyn, who I wrote about last week, albeit for a slightly shorter time.

Mr Johnson is five years younger than me.

It is easy to think of Mr Johnson as a naughty schoolboy like Nigel Molesworth, the prep school pupil immortalised by the humourist Geoffrey Willans and cartoonist Ronald Searle.

Shirt hanging out and tie askew, Molesworth lives in fear of his next summons to Headmaster's study for misbehaviour.


Mr Johnson has got into scrapes all his life.

He is a product of the same private education system as Molesworth and he relishes the same schoolboy slang, as was shown most recently by his "girly swot" dismissal of David Cameron.

But where Molesworth is a hapless loser, Mr Johnson should not be dismissed.

He has cultivated his eccentricities in the service of his relentless drive to "be top", in the terminology of prep school exams.

Johnson denies ducking TV interviews

Humour, self-deprecation, and a thick skin have carried Mr Johnson to the brink of being returned to Number 10 as prime minister with a majority in parliament.

That would be sweet success for the small boy who told his brothers and sisters that he wanted to be "world king" one day.

The Johnsons are a driven, charming and highly competitive family.

From day one, their father told his children they would only get on by winning prizes and scholarships to famous private schools.

I first came across Mr Johnson in 1989 when he was appointed Brussels correspondent by the Daily Telegraph.

He'd got a job there through connections after being sacked by The Times for fabricating a quote which he put in the mouth of his godfather Colin Lucas, an eminent Oxbridge historian.

Mr Johnson was a remarkably self-confident 25-year-old.

My memory is that Johnson was never around during the long grind covering EU summits in Brussels. He'd appear about 90 minutes before his filing deadline with some tale of domestic drama recounted in Franglais.

His striking blond looks made him stand out and he has never been shy about drawing attention.

He already had a reputation as a character among fellow reporters for the right wing press.

Some knew of him as a glittering social success at Eton and Oxford.

My memory is that Johnson was never around during the long grind covering EU summits in Brussels.

He'd appear about 90 minutes before his filing deadline with some tale of domestic drama recounted in Franglais.

"Terrible day, old boy, the machine a laver overflowed, absolute innondation had to wait in for les plombiers.

"Be kind and give me a fill on what's being going on here."

His amused colleagues would duly fill him in.

When their newspapers came out the next day, their reports would be buried on the inside pages.

He'd quite likely have the splash on the front of the Telegraph, having really spent the previous day finding the straw to make exaggerated or fabricated claims about the perfidy of Brussels - small condoms, straight bananas, banning jam etc.

The Conservative politician Chris Patten, who served as an EU commissioner, described Mr Johnson in Brussels as "one of the greatest exponents of fake journalism".

Image: Boris Johnson was editor of The Spectator

Boris Johnson himself commented: "Everything I wrote from Brussels, I found was sort of chucking these rocks over the garden wall and I listened to this amazing crash from the greenhouse next door in England as everything I wrote... was having this amazing explosive effect."

Brussels made his reputation with Tories.

He took a few weeks off to stand for parliament in an unwinnable Welsh Labour seat.

His friends saw it as one of his jolly japes but, as so often, they underestimated him.

This was in fact his first step towards becoming prime minister.

Conrad Black, the social-climbing proprietor of The Spectator and The Telegraph, appointed Mr Johnson the magazine's editor, even though Boris almost immediately broke his promise not to be an MP at the same time by being elected in 2001 to succeed Michael Heseltine in Henley.

Various scrapes followed, culminating in a series of revelations about affairs at the "Sextator" which also cost home secretary David Blunkett his job.

Mr Johnson denied as "an inverted pyramid of piffle" reports that a liaison with the journalist Petronella Wyatt had led to two abortions.

The then-Tory leader Michael Howard sacked him from the front bench for lying.

To give an idea of how this section of society works, at the height of the scandal all the participants in the drama, and guests including me, attended a jokey - if charged - Spectator Awards ceremony at Claridge's Hotel.

I wrote a couple of articles for Mr Johnson while he was at the Spectator.

In spite of the pitiful fee, he was the most demanding editor I have ever worked for.

Image: The politician was previously sacked from the front bench for lying

He demanded thousands of words for a diary of a few hundred, just so he could pick out the juiciest bits - preferably where I had gone too far in exasperation.

Being able to use people for your own ends is, I believe, an essential quality to rise the very top in politics.

Next, Mr Johnson spotted the chance to run for Mayor of London in 2008.

Like his opponent and predecessor Ken Livingstone, he already had the big personality and media profile which the capital seems to like.

His first term coincided with the London 2012 Olympics and he exploited it to the full even though it had been a Labour achievement of Tessa Jowell, Tony Blair and Mr Livingston.

During the Olympics, I interviewed Boris Johnson "down the line".

As we were getting down to the substance, he suddenly abandoned his earpiece and wandered off.

Later he sent me a handwritten note of apology.

That's Boris Johnson getting away with it again.

Jeremy Vine has written a fascinating account of how Mr Johnson pulls off highly paid dinner speaking engagements with minimum effort.

My own memory is of him turning up late and in a scruffy lounge suit at a stuffy black-tie dinner of the Jewish Commonwealth Society.

He launched into his stale mayoral patter of amusing claims such as "London exports knickers to Paris".

It was his standard set of remarks which everyone present must have heard before.

I thought he was going to lose his serious and dignified audience.

Then suddenly he said "Of course there is also 1656".

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The date meant nothing to me but it was the year Oliver Cromwell allowed the re-admission of Jews to England after centuries of persecution.

Immediately he had the room eating out of his hand.

When he finished he was shown his place of honour at the top table but said "sorry I can't stay for dinner" and hurried to the exit.

Boris Johnson may not quite be "the nasty piece of work" as put to him in his most difficult ever interview with Eddie Mair.

He is certainly self-centred. A user and not a man to be relied upon.

He tends to tell people what he thinks they want to hear even if it totally contradicts what he has said elsewhere.

On the other hand, with the exception of the Foreign Office, the organisations where he has starred - The Spectator, The Telegraph, London, Oxford, Eton - have not done badly out of their association with him.

In less than a fortnight, Britain's voters will decide if they want him to run the country for the next five years.

Sky Views is a series of comment pieces by Sky News editors and correspondents, published every morning.

Previously on Sky Views: Ian King - Hiking business tax may be regarded as carrying little political risk