Boris Titov is running to be president of Russia, but he’s eager to talk himself out of the job. ‘I am not a good politician,’ he says, over breakfast at the Lanesborough hotel in Knightsbridge. ‘To be a president means you need to be wise, a big politician like Thatcher, Deng Xiaoping, Lee Kuan Yew. Russia needs a tough politician in the presidential chair and I am not that man.’
Titov knows that on 18 March, Vladimir Putin, the toughest politician of our age, will be re-elected as Russia’s Supreme Commander-in-Chief. ‘Everybody understands that,’ he says. ‘We are not stupid. I have common sense.’
Which prompts the question: why run? By way of an answer, Titov starts talking about House, the American TV medical drama starring Hugh Laurie. ‘You know him, the British actor, yes?’ he says. ‘In one of the series he was diagnosing an American politician, and he says to the politician, “Why do you fight? Why do you go for election when you will never win?” And this guy answered with a very good saying: “If I wouldn’t have been fighting, the policies of our state would have been completely different.”’
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