When I lived in north London as a postgraduate student, my flatmates amused themselves by shouting abusive names at the then member for Henley as he cycled past on his way to the Commons from his house in Islington. But judging by the reaction from my old neighbours in Herne Hill, Boris Johnson is likely to receive an even less affable greeting there.
The erstwhile prime minister and his wife have reportedly bought a five-bedroom home in Herne Hill, the leafy liberal, left-leaning pocket of south-east London where I lived for almost 20 years before moving to Norfolk last summer. Since news of their move to SE24 became public, the neighbourhood WhatsApp groups that I haven’t got round to deleting have been pinging with a fury and insistency not seen since Lambeth Council used lockdown to push through Low Traffic Neighbourhoods.
My phone buzzes with messages to the effect: ‘You moved out in the nick of time.’
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