Boris barely put a foot wrong to fulfil his ‘destiny’ of No 10
Jeremy Hunt was really only ever playing the straight man to Johnson’s entertaining star turn
As campaign slogans go, its acronym didn’t sound like a winning formula. But in sticking to the “DUD” method – Deliver Brexit, Unite the country and Defeat Corbyn – Boris Johnson won the Tory leadership race. Devised by campaign strategist Mark Fullbrook, whose business partner Sir Lynton Crosby invented Theresa May’s now ironic “strong and stable” mantra, the key to Mr Johnson’s success was that he never really strayed from DUD – even when answering questions on completely unrelated subjects.
It was quite a feat for a man who was once the butt of Mrs May’s jokes at her first Conservative Party conference in 2016, when she jibed: “Can Boris Johnson stay on message for a full four days? Just about.”
In fact the former foreign secretary largely managed not to put a foot wrong for an entire six weeks.
Having kept a low profile during the first phase of the campaign to win over Tory MPS, critics were hoping the gaffe-prone former London mayor would slip on a banana skin during one of the 16 Tory hustings.
But bar a bruising grilling by Andrew Neil and a verbal fisticuffs with Jeremy Hunt during a heated ITV debate, Mr Johnson largely emerged unscathed – sticking to his mantra of delivering Brexit “do or die”.
Indeed at times the hustings became so repetitive that there was barely a Conservative member who
hadn’t heard Mr Johnson’s Mars Bar joke – referring to the Project Fear suggestion that a no-deal Brexit would lead to a shortage of “the very snacks upon which our children’s lives depend”. “Where there’s a will, there’s a whey,” he told delighted crowds.
His rival Jeremy Hunt’s own Groundhog Day moment came with his repeated assurances that he was the best person to negotiate Brexit because he started his own business.
At one point, during a hustings in Carlisle, presenter Iain Dale became so exasperated, he jibed: “Is it true you were once an entrepreneur?”
Forty-three days on from the moment 10 prospective prime ministers entered the leadership race on June 10, it’s easy to forget that Mr Johnson first had the Herculean task of winning over the parliamentary party.
Having been long ago advised by Sir Lynton to “show MPS more love”, Mr Johnson appointed Gavin Williamson, the former chief whip, and Grant Shapps, the former party chairman, to spearhead his whipping campaign.
With Mr Williamson working on the waverers, based on complex spreadsheets devised by Mr Shapps, the double act proved formidable.
According to one Tory MP: “Gavin and ‘Spreadsheet’ Shapps were absolutely forensic. They literally had detailed intel on each and every Tory MP – who they had said they might support … who they might consider supporting if their first choice fell out of the race.”
Mr Shapps was so sure what the result of the ballots would be that he wrote the number down in a sealed envelope for Mr Johnson to open after it had been announced. He correctly predicted that Mr Johnson would win 143 votes in the third round and 157 in the fifth. He finished on 160 votes compared with Jeremy Hunt’s 77.
Insiders also credit Mr Johnson’s girlfriend, Carrie Symonds, 31, the Tories’ former head of communications, with winning over MPS, particularly helping to convince women that he had reformed. She also helped to smarten up his image.
Indeed it was notable that while Mr Hunt insisting on addressing Tory members with his jacket off and sleeves rolled up, Blair/cameron-style, Mr Johnson remained suited.
Not that it was all plain sailing. As the campaign shifted to winning over Conservative members, it was hit with the bombshell of Mr Johnson and Ms Symonds’s blazing late night row that had been recorded by neighbours and handed to The Guardian.
Headlines that Ms Symonds had been heard yelling at Mr Johnson “get off me” and “get out of my flat” after he spilt red wine on her white sofa could not have come at a worse time.
Then staged photographs emerged of the couple gazing at one another over a picnic table in an undisclosed rural location. It had been hoped the grainy mobile phone pictures would move attention on from the torrid headlines, yet the photo “exclusive” appeared to raise more questions, over who authorised it, than answers.
As the story stretched to day four, Mr Fullbrook was drafted in to “professionalise” the campaign, while former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith was appointed campaign chairman.
The strategy worked and accompanied by his personal photographer, Andrew Parsons, Team Boris made sure the optics around Mr Johnson were pitch perfect for media output.
An image of Mr Johnson having his nose licked by a puppy called Lucky managed to detract attention from a bizarre interview where he admitted to spending his spare time painting models of buses from old wooden crates. In the same interview, with Talk Radio, he declared the UK would be leaving the EU on Oct 31 “do or die, come what may”.
It was music to the ears of Tory Leavers. While Mr Hunt’s team insisted they were “winning the hustings”, in fact they were really only ever playing the straight man to Mr Johnson’s entertaining star turn.
Energetic, focused and clearly the more committed to delivering Brexit in 100 days, it was DUD all the way for Mr Johnson, who also appeared more convincing when it came to his rhetoric around defeating Jeremy Corbyn. While Mr Hunt referred to Labour as the “crocodile lurking beneath”, Mr Johnson was able to constantly remind his audience that he beat the “far more wily” Ken Livingstone not once but twice in London.
That is not to say that Mr Hunt did not give a good account of himself, it just wasn’t what the majority of members wanted to hear.
Within hours of the ballot papers being sent out to the 160,000 members on July 6, many had already crossed the Boris box and sent it back.
It meant that the ITV debate on July 9 came a little too late. Although the media appeared to suggest Mr Hunt had won the debate, some members appeared to dislike his personal attacks on Mr Johnson, who as well as resolutely refusing to discuss his private life, also consistently stopped short of criticising the opposition.
Mr Johnson’s BBC run-in with Neil on July 12 was also deemed too late to influence the outcome, although a clip of the would-be prime minister admitting he did not know what was in paragraph 5C of GATT 24, the World Trade Association Clause at the heart of his Brexit plan, has gained notoriety.
Mr Fullbrook’s own internal polling suggested that Mr Johnson was set to win as much as 71 per cent of the vote.
In the end he had to settle for 66 per cent – still a convincing victory over Mr Hunt, who would have required a Churchillian effort to beat the man long destined for life behind Downing Street’s black door.