Rich, cute, posh and clever ...you’ve got to pity poor Zac

LIKE a Jane Austen heroine, Zac Goldsmith MP is handsome, clever and rich. So handsome that he was once described as having a face ‘carved out of caramel by angels’ (and that’s copyright – it was my description!).

Zac is so clever that after he was kicked out of public school he got four A-levels at a community college. He went on to edit an arcane green mag called The Ecologist and write books with titles I don’t understand about subjects you and I know nothing about.

He is so rich that he doesn’t need to lift a finger, let alone set his cap at becoming fulltime Mayor of London. I called the current mayor (salary £47,970) for an assessment of his potential successor at City Hall, and he ladled on the praise with a free hand. ‘He has nauseatingly good manners, colossal wealth, effortless charm, he puts everyone at their ease instantly,’ Boris gushed.

Despite all of the above, Zac must be serious, because – let’s face it – the odds are stacked against him. First, there are his pointless good looks. If Zac becomes mayor, it will be as if that Richard Curtis movie which has Hugh Grant becoming Prime Minister is unspooling before our eyes.

When I talk to Zac, even though he is articulate, passionate, well-informed and only a teensy bit earnest, I don’t really hear what he’s saying. I just gaze at him as he sits there rolling his cigarettes and talking about the Third Runway, nodding at intervals. There can be no other male politician alive anywhere who knows as well as Zac what it’s like to be a knock-out blonde with big t***, who desires nothing more than to be loved for her brains and personality.

In my excitement I have immediately enlisted for Team Zac. His campaign is called ‘BackZac2016’ but Boris insists on bellowing ‘BackZac and Crack’ to interviewers, very pleased with his joke.

Zac’s sister Jemima Khan – no relation of Sadiq – has gone with the more threatening ‘Back Zac OR Crack’.

But Zac’s heavenly appearance is only the start of his problems. As everyone knows, the main thing about Zac, who is now greying in a youthful, hip, silver-fox way, is that he’s not exactly Dick Whittington, who rose to become Mayor of London despite his origins as a penniless scullion and thanks to the superior ratting abilities of his cat. Ruling himself out of the same race two years ago, Zac said: ‘I think people have had enough of white, male Etonians. I’m not sure my chances would be very high.’

Frank Zacharias Robin Goldsmith knows his real handicap is that he is a white, posh, rich boy who went to Eton and who inherited hundreds of millions from his father, the billionaire tycoon James Goldsmith.

Therefore, in Labour-leaning London, Zac is the one overcoming all the disadvantages in the mayoral race, and not his opponent, the Corbynista Sadiq Khan (Sadiq is also handsome, clever and rich, though the various fairies have not been quite so over-generous in his case).

It is on-message to claim in the wake of Zac’s nomination that Britain lies back and expects Etonians to rule, but I don’t agree. It’s taboo to point this out, of course, but it could be argued that the last openly persecuted minority (I am exaggerating, but only a tiny bit to make my point) are posh people, which is why the Prime Minister always says what matters is not where you’re coming from, but where you’re going.

WHATEVER Dave says, the narrative – pitting the rich son of a billionaire against the self-made son of a bus driver from Pakistan – couldn’t be worse for the Conservatives. I can see how maddening it is when someone like Zac, who would be the first to admit he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, wants a big mandate to do a big job.

Being sublimely patient about answering the endless angry questions about his wealth and supposed entitlement, he could, if he wanted to, tell his detractors that he’s so rich that he can’t be bought, like Donald Trump. As for his looks, well, they are the cross he has to bear.

If Zac succeeds despite them, then it’s a game-changer in one way alone. Nobody will ever again be able to say that politics is showbiz for uglies.