Bamboozled by Boris the mischief maker

BORIS Johnson was silenced with more than £90million of public money after he threatened to lob a political hand grenade into a Tory party conference, it was claimed last night.

Lord Ashcroft’s biography of the Prime Minister also claims that he made his old Eton and Oxford adversary his last choice to be Tory candidate for London Mayor.

David Cameron dismissed Mr Johnson as having ‘totally the wrong profile’ and was so desperate to find an alternative that he even approached the Left-wing luvvie Greg Dyke, whom he invited to run on a joint Tory/Lib Dem ticket.

When Mr Johnson found out what the PM had said, he jokingly labelled Mr Cameron a ‘f*****’.

Later, he mischievously threatened to overshadow a major Tory event unless given tens of millions of pounds that helped boost his political career in the capital. On Day Three of the Mail’s serialisation of Call Me Dave, Lord Ashcroft and his co-author Isabel Oakeshott, an award-winning political journalist, reveal how:

Mr Cameron once replied to a Cabinet minister who told him he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, ‘No, I was born with two’;

He allegedly asked two undercover KGB officers to get him cannabis during a gap year in Russia. One spy later reported back, ‘Young man, likes drugs, he won’t go too far’;

Number Ten’s own pollster warned the public has no idea what he stands for;

Lady Thatcher believed he was shallow, according to friends; He pledged allegiance to ALL THREE candidates to replace her in 1990;

He tried – and failed – to win the endorsement of Sir John Major for his 2005 leadership bid.

According to the explosive memoir, Mr Johnson – who won the mayoral contest in 2008 – extracted a massive taxpayerfunded windfall from Mr Cameron and George Osborne to help his re-election campaign in London.

In 2011, with the economic recovery yet to take root, the Chancellor was desperate to have a ‘quiet conference’ with ‘nothing unexpected’.

He rang Mr Johnson to instruct him to behave, noting that in 2009 the Mayor had overshadowed conference by writing a newspaper column, published on the day of Mr Osborne’s own speech, demanding a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

The Mayor replied that he was staring at a ‘blank page’ for his latest column, and that his price for ‘no mischief’ was £90million extra for policing in the capital.

Before he put the phone down, the Chancellor had agreed to hand over £93million. Mr Johnson told aides: ‘ That was the bestpaid column ever.’

The book also quotes numerous Tory insiders suggesting the Prime Minister lacks a driving ‘vision’ or is in power for its own sake.

In one insight, it reveals how his own pollster, Andrew Cooper, told him: ‘Most people still don’t know what the government is trying to do beyond making cuts. They don’t know what your vision is.’

Lady Thatcher is said to have harboured her own doubts about his lack of ideology. One of her former confidants said: ‘She’d say, “If you’re leader, you’ve got to believe in something’.

One Westminster insider who worked with Mr Cameron when he first became party leader said: ‘There’s no guiding philosophy. What is Cameronism? F*** all.’

Meanwhile, friends of Lord Ashcroft hit back at suggestions that he felt he had ‘ deserved’ a top Government job in 2010 because of his £8million donation.

One said: ‘ Michael’s donations were immaterial as to whether he would receive any sort of “significant” government role after the 2010 election victory. He expected such a role because he had been promised one by David Cameron, who was thrilled with all the work he had done for the party in the fiveyear run-up to the 2010 election.’