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style,’ she recalls.
    Those qualities helped to propel Boris and his friend Hugo Dixon, now a dotcom businessman, to ‘steamroller’ their way to the final of the 1981 House Debating Competition on 28 November that year. Against the background of a Thatcherite recession laying waste to much of Britain’s industrial heartland and sparking riots in major cities, the motion was: ‘This House would Emigrate’.
    Boris spoke in favour of the motion that night, urging his audience to seek out a new life in space, away from what he chose to refer to as ‘the ghastly dregs’ living on Earth. His side lost the competition as the judges decided that they ‘preferred to be cajoled rather than berated.’ Boris’s anger at this result is reputedly still keenly felt today but at least the audience of boys divided 26–21 in favour of his team, sealing his reputation as a formidable populist. Tim Connor, a highly regarded history master who was one of the two judges, remembers: ‘Boris could always speak readily and wittily but we would judge on the actual quality of debate. Boris did berate people then and I can imagine he does now.’
    Sir Eric Anderson, formerly Tony Blair’s housemaster at Fettes in Scotland, became headmaster of Eton in 1980 and once a week taught Boris in Sixth Form Select – a handpicked group of the brightest boys.A favourite memory of Boris’s wit was when Anderson once wrote ‘Business, Industry, Commerce’ up on the board and gave his pupils ten minutes to write down what these words suggested to them. If you want to know how Boris ‘gets away with it’, look no further than his brilliant answer: ‘These three words suggest to me that the headmaster dined in London last night.’ Of course, he was right and Anderson – who thinks the story sums up his former pupil’s special brand of wit – could give only an indulgent smile in response. But Boris had made his mark. Anthony Howard remembers going to speak at Eton after Boris had left and asking Anderson: ‘Who is the most interesting – rather than the cleverest – pupil you’ve ever had?’ He replied: ‘Without a doubt, Boris Johnson.’ And according to Anderson: ‘He’s a very memorable person. Anyone who’s spent an hour with Boris never forgets it. All I have to say to you about him is all good.’ Privately, a different message sometimes emerges from the Etonian ranks, with grumbles that despite his undoubted cleverness and panache, Boris was too much of a ‘showman’ to tackle anything really serious.
    In common with Blair, being interesting at school often came at the price of a lack of attention to detail: Boris’s dislike of preparation undoubtedly annoyed his headmaster. When playing the lead in Richard III , he omitted to learn the lines so he had them pasted behind various pillars. It was funny for boys in the audience, but somewhat annoying for those who had invested a good deal of time and energy in the production. Since then, Boris has confined his acting performances to occasions when he can deliver his own lines.
    David Guilford remembers that Boris was invited to join the Essay Society, a select group of clever boys convened by the head. ‘He delivered a paper once off-the-cuff – he was clever enough to half get away with it. The headmaster thought it was only half thought-out, but Boris was always so busy with so many things. He was popular, got on with people, so he got away with it.’
    Despite his masters’ misgivings, Boris won a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford, to read Classics. Hammond’s final report, written on 2 January 1983, predicted that he would be ‘easier prey than some to the temptations of Oxford life.’ Displaying a weakness for upmarketladdish banter, Boris wrote under a photograph of himself toting a machine gun in the College Leaving Book of his determination to achieve, ‘more notches on my phallocratic phallus.’ Having stayed on to take his Oxbridge exam the previous