JUST BORIS: A Tale of Blond Ambition (51 page)

Boris was also instructed if he were a minute late for a quickly arranged breakfast meeting of hedge-funders and other potential donors then Marland, for one, would immediately pull out. Lastly, he was told in no uncertain terms: ‘If you let us down, we’ll cut your fucking knees off!’

That first week, Crosby also quickly dealt with the issue of the team. ‘Boris’s people were a good bunch, but many hadn’t had the experience,’ he says. ‘So they often responded to the wrong things.
Candidates need confidence in order to perform, they can’t be worrying about things getting done right.’ Dan Ritterband was assigned to marketing – a position better suited to his undoubted creative talents. Two tough, bluff and gruff Australians, who would brook no nonsense from Boris, would now orchestrate every minute of his day. At Crosby’s insistence, James McGrath – another gal-vanising force from Down Under who had been advising Osborne – finally came from Central Office to work alongside him. ‘He was very hands-on,’ recalls one observer. ‘He was very good at what matters, deciding what doesn’t, and cutting through the crap. He drove things forward with his strength of will. He’s quite aggressive and would bark at people, if he had to. Somehow as an Australian it was easier for him to do the necessary shouting.’

Boris HQ subsequently became more boot camp than bohemian hangout – a bugle was even sounded to call the troops to a daily morning meeting also attended by the Opposition Chief Whip, Patrick McLoughlin, or one of his colleagues, who ensured lines remained open within the Parliamentary party. There was to be no more Rhodesia-style UDI. Work started at eight at the latest, seven days a week. The same rules applied to the 20 paid staff and the 20 unpaid volunteers. It could not have been less like Boris’s regime at the
Spectator
, with sofas provided for ‘fits of the vapours’ and long, drunken lunches. Those who failed to perform were bawled out, the successful lavishly praised and asked to take a bow.

Even Boris did not escape the military-style discipline. Designated a punishing regime of appearances and speeches, he would receive an admonishing text from Crosby if he stepped out of line by being late, off-message or scruffy. The running joke on the campaign team was that Crosby kept Boris squarely in the cross hairs of a sniper rifle, ready to bring him down the second his mouth ran away with him. To his credit, Boris submitted himself to Crosby’s strictures but it cannot have been easy. ‘He was neither petulant nor precious about it,’ recalls Crosby.

Boris’s hair was cut and combed, his suit, shirt and tie collection refreshed. And despite his energetic resistance, he was sent for media training with another bull-like Antipodean, Scott Chisholm – an ex-Sky
News anchorman originally from New Zealand but who started his working life in Australia. With a big physical presence and nice line in put-downs, he is not one to be impressed by Old Etonian bumbling.

Initially, Boris could not see the need for media training – after all, he had conquered the airwaves with his buffoonery on
Have I Got News for You
. He was also a journalist with a proven way with words. But Crosby knew that Boris had to change his style for the quick-fire demands of a political campaign, particularly the forthcoming televised debates against Ken and Paddick. It was yet another battle that Boris could not win – but one he was glad in the end to have lost for Chisholm is a master at helping people hone their thoughts into television-friendly sound-bites lasting barely a couple of seconds or a handful of words. Accustomed to the luxury of being allowed to ramble at will, Boris admitted to his team afterwards that he had ‘needed’ it. For a man so eloquent in print, Boris can be strikingly inarticulate in speech.

Intent on keeping Boris in check and on message, Crosby continued to attend his more important media appearances, calmly coaching him on the spot just before the cameras started rolling. He knew that Boris had to prove he was both serious and competent – smirking was specifically banned – and only the slickest of performances would do the job. So, to avoid mishaps, access to Boris was tightly controlled and most journalists, even those who waited months for an interview, never got near him. Boris insisted it was ‘absolute bollocks’ that he had been gagged, but he did once let slip that he considered his new handlers ‘scary.’

Crosby’s most important task now was to devise a strategy that would persuade people to turn out and vote for Boris. Early on, he was given an intriguing piece of research. People were asked to look at pictures of Ken’s, Boris’s and the other candidates’ faces and to say which ones made them happy. The results were encouraging as not only did Boris score much higher than Ken and the others, but his face also triggered feelings of affection, even if people did not always agree with his political views. He had, in short, a likeability factor that put him above and beyond the normal bounds of politics. Crosby himself
noticed that people smiled when they saw him in the street; somehow they picked up that ‘with the ego comes a sensitivity, a real desire to make people like him.’ Paddick and his team also found that the ‘most common response we got on the doorstep was, “I’m voting for Boris because he is a laugh.” It’s a sad reflection in terms of interest in politics. People now judge their politicians not on their policies, but in the same way as they judge other celebrities.’

Not that this news permitted any complacency. Crosby believes that the message is the most important element in politics. Boris’s needed ‘some refinement’ and to be delivered ‘to the right people.’ The themes were to be simple but emotive: getting rid of bendy buses, reducing youth crime and making public transport safer. They were to be delivered in ways that would suppress Ken’s votes – by attacking his record on all three – and ensuring that Conservative voters were encouraged to turn out and make change happen. Ken was to be portrayed as a Zone One and Two man – an ideologue not interested in the millions who come from the ‘outer rim’ of London and more interested in pet causes and ‘playing politics’ than in the realities of life for Londoners.

Boris’s general strengths as a ‘non-politician,’ celebrated optimist and raconteur were similarly to be emphasised. And any negative assaults from the other side on issues such as race, homophobia or simply being too posh were to be systematically dealt with, the rebuttal lines carefully prepared. Crosby felt that overall Labour had, in any case, underestimated the power of Boris’ personality and, relying on the shambles of his early campaign, had fought a poor fight with contradictory messages. Labour ministers such as Harriet Harman, Ed Balls or Hazel Blears would either dismiss Boris as a ‘clown’ on the one hand or an ‘evil, nasty, elitist, racist, Thatcherite Tory’ on the other. But as it was difficult to be both, he believed neither tag would really stick in the end. Tony Travers, the London politics expert at the London School of Economics, talks about Labour tactics directly boosting Boris’s vote. ‘Johnson and his entourage should give Ken and chums daily thanks,’ he observes. ‘They built up Boris to such a monster that it has helped him ever since. They said he was stupid – wrong; nasty – wrong; a clown – less
easy to say wrong. It’s the opposite of President Obama, who was built up as the saviour of the world and the best hope for liberals anywhere. So when the love actually clicked into power, he was bound to fail. By contrast, Boris could only exceed expectations.’

But Crosby’s strategy went far further than that. He identified three key reasons why people would not vote Boris: that he wasn’t up to it (solution: Crosby’s unforgiving regime of discipline and preparation); that people hadn’t heard of him (solution: a relentless round of micro-targeted appearances and interviews) and lastly, that he wasn’t going to make a difference (solution: the now-infamous ‘doughnut’ strategy targeting likely Tory supporters in outer London, who had not previously bothered to vote in mayoral elections, and demonstrating what a good mayor could do for them by improving transport, cleaning up parks, reducing congestion and planting trees). Crosby believed a high turnout might well increase Ken’s support, but it would boost the Conservative vote even more. The team was instructed ‘to lock in the base’ first before going for the ‘swing.’ ‘Like an exam paper, tackle the easy questions that you know first,’ he would say.

So the campaign focused in turn on five goals: first, persuading voters outside central London who had not voted in previous mayoral elections to vote for Boris now; then motivating existing Tories to vote for Boris (a significant group of so-called ‘Livingstone Tories’ had voted for Ken because Steve Norris was perceived to lack star quality); then persuading non-Tories in inner London to vote for Boris (by trading on his personality and promoting his liberal credentials); followed by suppressing Labour’s vote, particularly in its strongest areas (by attacking Ken’s record, above all on crime); and finally, going after Liberal Democrat voters on the basis that their candidate could not win and Boris was worth at least a second preference vote.

Crosby’s research told him that the ‘most significant issue’ in influencing Liberal Democrats (for both their first and second preference votes) was the environment. But while this could have been tricky for Boris, who had until recently been a critic of what he thought was the cult of climate change and its deluded disciples, focus in the mayoral campaign was local rather than planetary. Voters wanted to know who would clear rubbish in the streets, stop the
building on green spaces and soften the hard edges of living in London. With judicious and well targeted leafleting and announcements – including that the £1 million saved by abolishing Ken’s free-sheet newspaper would be spent on more trees – Team Boris were able to convince many that their man was stronger on the
local
environment. It was yet another example of Crosby’s micro-management of voter concerns with matching policies, a strategy that saw his team write and distribute no fewer than 397 different pieces of campaigning literature. It was, in effect, much of a re-run of Boris’s Oxford chameleon strategy of being ‘something for everyone’ when running for President of the Union, but played out on a massive and grown-up stage.

Meanwhile, that new ultra-disciplined regime was proving effective in cutting down on gaffes, improving punctuality and making sure Boris knew his brief. Indeed, the more Ken and Labour still tried to portray him as a bumbling toff, the more voters took the attacks as proof of his authenticity as a man of the people. The more the ruling elite attacked Boris as incompetent, disastrous and lightweight, the more he was willed to succeed and forgiven the odd lapse. As the cliché goes, the British love no one more than an underdog – particularly one with a cracking self-deprecatory wit.

In January 2008, Nick Cohen summed up the view of many a pundit in an article in the
Evening Standard
: ‘My dilemma: Ken is past it and Boris hasn’t a clue.’ Ian Hislop, editor of the satirical magazine
Private Eye
, liked to quip: ‘People always ask me the same question, they say, “Is Boris a very, very clever man pretending to be an idiot?” And I always say, “No.”’ But Crosby revelled in the pundits’ hostility – he thought it actually beneficial to be attacked by what he sneeringly dubbed ‘Zone One’ commentators – as it consolidated Boris’s links with ordinary Londoners in the ’burbs. And indeed, the voters started showing signs that they shared none of the reservations about Boris that even his own side could not shake off. A poll in January put Boris on 44 per cent, just a point behind Ken and leagues ahead of Paddick on 7 per cent: it was the first concrete indication that he really could win.

Crucially, Marina also got involved. Rarely seen in Henley, she was
inspired by the fight for London, which she saw far more in personal terms for Boris than the Conservative party. It was the first time she had had to vote for Boris – she had not registered on the electoral roll in Henley – and according to his closest aides, the first time she had voted Conservative. She now appeared on walkabouts, such as a tour round Billingsgate Market with Boris, and David and Samantha Cameron; attended hustings and having her ear to the liberal metropolitan heartbeat, advised Boris on how he could woo over non-Tory voters like her to his cause. She, in effect, joined his kitchen cabinet and earned Crosby’s respect for ‘being emotionally on board.’ ‘Marina got increasingly involved,’ recalls a key aide. ‘The Mayorship is a very personal thing, and success or failure is very personal too so she became more protective of him. She was seen with him, which she rarely was in Henley. For the spouses, it’s often about how their partner is seen – and it was for her.’ Her reassuring presence also helped to contain awkward questions about Boris’s sex life now and his affairs in the past.

Not that it was all plain sailing – Boris was still Boris, after all. At a demonstration against aircraft-noise in west London, he watched the planes passing overhead only to remark, ‘That’s bad, but it’s not wrist-slittingly bad, it is?’ Then another plane flew over, lower and noisier than before, and with evident relief Boris was able to say: ‘Yes, that’s
very
bad. Very bad indeed!’ Then, when climbing onto a wall to deliver an address, he narrowly missed kicking Cameron in the head (the Leader was in the middle of a television interview in support of him at the time).

On other occasions, Boris’s careful preparation, on-message delivery and determination to present himself as a serious man of policy first baffled audiences, who had come expecting laughs, and then, frankly, bored them. The struggle to contain the comic within was clearly exhausting and his face certainly started to show the strain. ‘I simply cannot afford to give the media any sign that I’m not taking it seriously,’ he told the
Standard.
‘This is by far the best thing I’ve ever tried to do.’ After all, it was only three years since suicide bombers had killed 52 innocent people in the capital – an atrocity that Ken was widely perceived to have dealt with well. Even Boris’s supporters
wondered aloud whether he had the necessary gravitas and leadership skills to pull London through another outrage. ‘I kept thinking if something horrible happens in London,’ said one, ‘will Bertie Wooster be able to deal with it?’