‘The thing about Boris is that he really, really wants to be President,’ said an Old Etonian contemporary of his. This was back in 1984 when we were all at Oxford together.
‘Yes, I know,’ I replied. ‘He’s already announced his candidacy.’
‘I don’t mean President of the Union,’ he said. ‘I mean President of the United States.’
Could that possibly be true? Boris was born in New York in 1964 so he isn’t disqualified on those grounds. But wasn’t it a tad ambitious to think he could become President of the United States? I checked with his sister, Rachel, who was then a fresher at New College. As expected, she pooh-poohed the idea. ‘Last time I checked he wanted to be World King,’ she said.
Be that as it may, he still had to conquer the Oxford Union — and his first attempt wasn’t successful.
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