Name: Kate Bush.

Age: 61.

Appearance: Dramatic but infrequent.

Status: Absolutely, categorically not a Tory, whatever Boris Johnson might imply.

Sorry, you’ve lost me. Johnson has chosen the “five women who have shaped my life” for Grazia magazine to mark International Women’s Day on 8 March, and Bush is one of them. He says that in his adolescence she “stirred his emotions”, even though he didn’t understand all the lyrics to her songs or why she “hopped around in a red chiffon thing”.

Who are his other four inspirations? Wives, mistresses, mothers of his many offspring? Johnson has ignored his numerous lovers – Grazia would have needed a special issue for that – and gone for his paternal grandmother Yvonne Williams, the warrior queen Boudicca, the No 10 Downing Street policy chief Munira Mirza and the human rights activist Malala Yousafzai, as well as poor old Kate.

Poor old Kate? Yes, Bush is very touchy about being linked to the Tories.

Who wouldn’t be touchy? I didn’t know she was a Tory. Look, can we get this straight: the uniquely talented if rather reclusive Bush is not a Tory. She just gave a very unfortunate interview to the Canadian magazine Maclean’s in 2016 in which she expressed her admiration for Theresa May, who had replaced David Cameron as PM a few months earlier.

What did she say? “I think she is wonderful … it’s the best thing that’s happened to us in a long time. It is great to have a woman in charge of the country.”

What was the reaction? Many of Bush’s fans were horrified and she was vilified on social media.

Did she retract? Yes, but not until more than two years later, when she posted a “clarification” on her website saying that the quote had been taken out of context.

That old chestnut. Don’t be such a cynic. “My response to the interviewer was not meant to be political but rather was in the defence of women in power,” she explained.

Do we know what her political views really are? No, but in a 1990 episode of The Comic Strip Presents, chronicling the fight over the Greater London Council, she produced and performed the theme song Ken, a bizarre homage to Ken Livingstone. It had the immortal lines: “Who’s the man we all need? Ken! Who’s a funky sex machine? Ken!”

Hardly Wuthering Heights. Livingstone called it her greatest song, but he may have been joking.

Not to be confused with: George HW Bush, George W Bush, Jeb Bush, Lulu (who was not afraid to shout about her support for the Tories under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s).

Do say: “Why doesn’t Jennifer Arcuri feature in Johnson’s list?”

Don’t say: “Personally, I don’t see what’s wrong with avant-garde pop stars being Tories.”