Stanley’s sorrow at missed top job
BORIS Johnson’s dad gets out his loudhailer as he announces: I wanted to be Prime Minister, too.
Stanley, 79, whose eldest son, 55, holds the post, hinted he thought several of his six children had achieved more in politics than he.
The formertory MEP said: “I was rather keen on being PM. As it turns out others have, shall we say, gone further down that route – but you know, I was here first.”
Stanley, also father totory MP and former Minister Jo, 48, and pro-brexit campaigner Rachel, 54, admitted he was trying to remain on his best behaviour as the Prime Minister’s dad.
Referring to himself as the
“First Father”, he said: “I think I am ready to recognise that it does behove me possibly not to do anything totally silly, unless I can justify it for other reasons.”
He went on to pay tribute to Boris’s “First Girlfriend”, Carrie Symonds. Stanley – an ardent environmental campaigner – told Saga Magazine: “We are both patrons of the Conservative Animal
Welfare Foundation and I’m absolutely proud to be there and, on a professional level, I pay tribute to the things Carrie is doing.”
He tries to raise awareness about green issues during histv appearances, which have included I’m A Celebrity...
But he admits his wife Jennifer “groans every time she sees me heading off to some reality TV show”.
● The full interview is in Saga Magazine’s March issue.