Predicting his own (and David Cameron’s) future political success in 1988, Boris Johnson candidly described the realpolitik of winning votes to become president of the Oxford Union, long seen as a birthing pool for the nation’s politicians. In The Oxford Myth, a collection of essays edited by his sister Rachel, Johnson says the ‘most natural’ politicians come from ‘the Establishment’. This he describes as a ‘loosely knit confederation of middle-class undergraduates, invariably public school, who share the same accents and snobberies, and who meet each other at the same parties. If you are a member of the Establishment, you will know it. You cannot be recruited.’

He goes on:

As an ambitious candidate in the Establishment you will do well not to appear too party political. Working this particular machine in your favour is an exercise in social politics. To all your chinless friends in the Establishment you simply look as though you lead a dynamic social life. Indeed it is essential for success as an Establishment candidate that you do not appear too gritty or thrusting. Only you know that the nectar of goodwill that you collect as you flit from party to party will eventually be translated into votes. Until that time comes you deliberately dampen down discussion of the Union and Oxford politics. Establishment folk have an English middle-class distaste for political conversation and the stooge candidate must do a great deal of subtle playing along before he can cash his chips and ask them to vote. But when that time comes the Establishment votes with a surprising and unthinking loyalty.1