I have met Boris Johnson twice. The ugliness was always obvious beneath the bonhomie
The interesting thing about Boris Johnson’s exit from parliament is not his statement, a thousand words from a psychedelic upside-down world in which everyone else is a liar and he alone tells the truth. Perhaps that’ll come back to bite me: it could be important for the historical record. Right now, though, I’m struck by the new consensus that Johnson is an unlikable man, without friends or allies, whose only discernible mark on the universe is a trail of the betrayed and disillusioned. This is now apparently an obvious thing, completely common knowledge among the Boris-watchers who five seconds ago were telling us that he was the most genial man in British politics.
A little bit of consistency would be nice, or at the very least some acknowledgment that they’re now saying something different from what they said before. But never mind that, because it’s also a relief. It’s quite discombobulating when opinion is united on the amiability of a man who you can see, from a distance and close up, and at every proximity in between, is not amiable.
The first time I met Johnson was at a Spectator lunch in 1999, shortly after he had become editor. Magazines had dining rooms then, or maybe they still do; I haven’t been invited to one of these things since the time I went to a New Statesman lunch and thought “Chatham House rules” meant you were allowed to smoke while other people were still eating. I deduced that logically from the fact that as soon as Geoffrey Robinson said it, everyone immediately started smoking.
Anyway, I was sitting next to Johnson, and he said, “Why are you here?” There was an unspoken second half to that sentence, which wasn’t: “We’re rightwing and you’re leftwing.” I was just a kid writing on the Evening Standard
then and nobody knew which wing I was on. It was: “You don’t sound posh and you’re not pretty, so … why are you here?” I said: “You tell me – you invited me,” which ended the exchange, but it turned into an existential question. Why was I there? It was a room full of sycophants, all their attention trained on a man who could generate gales of mirth, despite being – of this I was as sure as I’d ever been of anything – not at all funny. Maybe it was time to start asking: “Do I want to hang around supercilious, trivial people I don’t care about, even if there is wine there?”, before saying “yes” to invitations.
Almost a decade later, in 2008, Johnson was launching his new Routemaster bus in Flitwick, Bedfordshire. He was fresh from his mayoral victory a few weeks previously, and if I hadn’t met him once before, I’d have said he had ego over-supply; instead I knew that was his default state. “I remember you,” he said. “You’re the one who wrote that horrible thing about me.” And this was true: in a bid to deter London voters, I had written something horrible about him, drawing entirely on things that he himself had written, which were horrible. I didn’t want to get into a fight with the guy; I wanted to have a go on the bus. So I said: “That’s journalism,” and that seemed to satisfy him.
The day stuck in my mind because I was on the same train back to London as Johnson, and he got mobbed by enthusiastic teenagers. It was, I suppose, proof of concept: he must have that magic quality, whatever you want to call it, charisma, magnetic affability. Sure, Mid Bedfordshire was a constituency that reliably voted for Nadine Dorries, so it was as Tory as they get; nevertheless, aren’t all teenagers supposed to hate Conservative politicians? How had Johnson penetrated their consciousness as a celebrity, rather than a suit? What struck me, watching the interaction, was Johnson’s disgust, palpable beneath the pantomime bonhomie. He really likes votes; I’m not sure how much he likes voters.
Anyway, finally, we’re all on the same page: not a fun, likable person – the opposite. It won’t necessarily mitigate the damage of his next act, but it’s something.
• Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
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