His hero Pericles, shameless populist

AT SCHOOL, Boris found a hero in Pericles – a revered Athenian statesman and general who, with charisma and shameless populism, pleased the crowds to win constant re-election.

Blending this and other influences – including Bertie Wooster, the fictional prep schoolboy Molesworth, and Just William – Boris developed a unique oratorical style combined with the belief that every speech must include humour.

He learned that in ancient Greece, endless sex was perfectly acceptable.

The wonder of male superiority in ancient civilisations was unrestrained relationships enjoyed without rancour or guilt.

And in Boris’s farewell to Eton when he went to Oxford, he inserted in the leaving book a photo of himself wearing two scarves and holding a machine gun, with his pledge to score

‘more notches on my phallocratic phallus’.