‘Boris Johnson broke cover yesterday to declare that he will run for parliament,’ the Times reported last week. The Mirror had him running too. The Independent and the Guardian had him standing for Parliament. The Express said rather oddly that he would ‘stand as an MP’, as did the Evening Standard, though the latter made amends by speculating that Zac Goldsmith was being urged ‘to stand as the Tory candidate for Mayor of London’.
There is no doubt that running for election was originally an American phrase, though it hardly blew in yesterday. Andrew Hamilton, a founding father of the United States, wrote in a letter that ‘either Governor Clinton, or Mr Burr… is to be run in this quarter as Vice President in opposition to Mr Adams’. That usage of someone being run, like a horse in a race, is recorded in the late 18th century, just a few years before someone running for Congress or for President.
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