Boris Johnson & The Importance Of Not Being Earnest

London’s Daily Telegraph (known with varying degrees of affection as the Torygraph for its unswerving devotion to Britain’s Conservative & Unionist Party) ran a story on 5 August (the online link is from 7/8; I cannot compare it to the earlier print version) in which they offered deep insight to the new Prime Minister, Boris Johnson’s, wonder years at Oxford. The scoop was that, in 1986, Johnson went on an Oxford Union debating beano to the USA, and that in his team of four was also the incoming head of the NHS, Simon Stevens. Given that fears over his handling of the National Health Service are a major issue in Britain, this was a remarkable coincidence. Or not much of a coincidence, if you understand the structure of British society.

Here’s how the Telegraph set the scene:

“Boris Johnson, an Old Etonian, had been the centre-Right president of the Oxford Union, employing his waggish charm to cultivate loyal ‘stooges’ hanging on his every word. Simon Stevens, on the other hand, was from a Birmingham comprehensive (state secondary school), a member of the Labour Club and was far more earnest in his approach to student politics.”

What more does a Telegraph reader need to know? Kate Fox, the author of Watching The English (note that most of what we say about those at the top of the British power structures are English) pointed out in her book that one of the first principles of Englishness is the importance of not being earnest. Her book drew very heavily indeed on the…