Politics On the Edge

Sasha, now five, and Ivo, two, spend a lot of time on the trampoline. I injure my ankle trying to avoid the strokes of a plastic sword. I persuade the boys to plant some oaks, and they watch me ramming fence posts into the ground and stringing them with barbed wire. Sasha writes a long story about a red car. I plant an irregular sequence of yews, which the deer eat. I read about the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi, and The Tale of Genji, which makes me think about those Japanese councillors who retire from the court, to make gardens and prepare tea.

Matt announced his decision in The Times. He said: ‘I have reflected on what is needed in the national interest, and how the approaches of the candidates fit with my values. Having considered all the options, I’m backing Boris Johnson as the best candidate to unite the Conservative Party, so we can deliver Brexit and then unite the country.’

Characteristically, he was also intrigued by the fact that my distant ancestor was an MP called Richard Rich, the villain of A Man for All Seasons, who had betrayed Thomas More in exchange for promotion to become Attorney General for Wales and ultimately Lord Chancellor. Robert liked to quote More’s comment: ‘Why Richard,’ he took to saying to me, ‘it profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world . . . but for Wales???’

But on 11 June, two days before the first ballot, he co-wrote a piece in Conservative Home, ‘We are looking for a prime minister . . . who will be realistic and honest . . . and who will be able to unite the nation behind any deal that is done. We believe that person is Boris Johnson.’ Boris Johnson had it seemed promised him the post of Lord Chancellor

‘I wonder,’ emailed Michael Ignatieff when I described the scene, ‘whether you have ever taken on the criticism that is levelled at you and will be levelled again, viz. that you are a self-publicizing adventurer who can’t be trusted: too vain and too naïve to understand that politics is (a) a team sport that rewards loyalty and punishes cleverness, and failing to grasp (b) that the prize in politics goes not to those who are “serious” but those who are good at exuding confidence and reassurance, conveying the illusion of control and mastery, even when they are pedalling furiously to keep afloat. You don’t want people to come away thinking that you believe you are too clever for this sordid game

An MP who had been the strongest in encouraging me to run six weeks earlier continued to sit in on our internal discussion, but held back from publicly endorsing me. ‘My final request,’ he said, ‘is for you to ensure that there would be no costs to EU nationals establishing residency in Britain.’ I didn’t like this pork-barrel politics but I did not dislike the policy. I costed it, found it would cost a few hundred million, consulted with the team and called him back an hour later to say, yes. ‘But,’ I added, ‘I now need you to endorse me. This has been going on too long. I need you across the line.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry Rory,’ he said, ‘I have already decided to endorse Michael Gove.’

Another new MP, James Cleverly, was also struggling to stay in the race. He was worldly, at ease with social media, and a Brexiteer. We didn’t agree, of course, on many policies but I needed someone like him to show I was serious about reuniting the party. I told him that, as a double act, one Remainer, one prominent Brexiteer, we had a decent chance. But he kept on saying that he had significant financial backers; that they wanted him and only him as the candidate, and would not consider a partnership. The new rules broke his campaign as well. He announced that he would be dropping out. I called him again but he said, flatly, that he had chosen to endorse Boris. We were down to eleven.

The day I returned, on 4 June, the 1922 Committee announced a new electoral system. To be nominated, we would each require the support of not two but eight MPs. We would need the support of seventeen MPs three days later, then thirty-three MPs five days after that, and then the last-placed candidate in each round would be eliminated. Despite the grandeur of their names, I had so far signed up only four MPs. I would need to double that for the nomination, then double it again by 13 June, and double it again by 18 June. They also clarified that only two candidates would be presented to the party in the country. Which meant in practice there would be only one slot free against Boris Johnson.

One of the junior ministers in the leadership race immediately announced his withdrawal. I saw him outside Portcullis House, and I had never seen him so angry. He had raised a great deal of money for his campaign, before discovering that he lacked the MP support to continue. He felt the rules had been deliberately skewed to make it impossible for smaller candidates to establish themselves, and win over the party in the country, as David Cameron, a new MP, had done in 2005.

‘The entire rules, Rory, are stacked against insurgent candidates like you and me – it is an establishment stitch-up.’

I said I hoped he would continue to support other insurgent candidates. He chose to endorse Boris.

Rather than wrecking my campaign, selfie-gate now accelerated it. Viewers seemed to find my admission of faking, or even my faking itself, authentic. I was benefitting, I sensed, from the same forces that rewarded Boris for his incompetent and transparent dishonesty. The same people watching me for a laugh were picking up glimpses of my approach and policies along the way. I had fallen down a Twitter hole into a political wonderland. My Twitter followers increased by 50 per cent in a week. At Euston station I was stopped by a man who wanted to video me on a station bench. He posted my lengthy, and slightly complicated, answer on the customs union on YouTube and it got 2 million views; my rivals’ polished and carefully produced statements on their EU position didn’t top 50,000.

The next day, I moved on to Lewisham, a Labour stronghold in South London. I chatted at a fruit stall to an older cockney, whose family had run his stall for over a hundred years. Behind him was a group of Afghan men from Kunar, a dry province of a land-locked country, who were running a lobster and whelk business. An elderly man told me he was one of a family of seven crammed in a council flat built for two. No one raised Brexit. But Jon Snow of Channel 4 arrived and filmed me in the market and interviewed me in a taxi. People watched these films and criticised me for not wearing a seat belt in the taxi, and for not having a good answer to Snow’s suggestion that I sounded like a figure from the imperial past. But, strangely, rather than harming me, these blunders seemed simply to raise my public profile.

The contrast between the grand pretensions of a leadership campaign and the reality of a candidate for prime minister chatting in the Costa in Barking seemed to amuse Twitter. Ever more people began retweeting and turning up. Some for a laugh. Some with an earnest commitment. One man travelled forty-five minutes from Shoreditch to ask me to sign my book. Tommy’s film crew arrived. A young Afghan came over and we spoke a little in Dari. This was posted on Twitter and watched about 300,000 times. People seemed to like watching a Conservative speaking Dari.