LONDON – Premier against ex-premier. Tory versus Tory. Bullingdon versus Bullingdon. Boris Johnson’s decision to open an investigation into David Cameron for his role as a lobbyist in the Greensill scandal, a bankrupt financial firm after trying to borrow from the government, reopens the 30-year duel between the two leading members of the conservative party last generations. An unhidden rivalry that has bordered on personal antipathy and which is considered, with hindsight, as one of the causes, if not the main one, of Brexit.
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“This is Boris’ final revenge on David,” he told al Financial Times a deputy of the Tories. “There is nothing that pleases Johnson”, echoed a former minister of the same party, both on the condition of remaining anonymous, “like being able to push Cameron under a bus”. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
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It is an antagonism born on the school desks, or rather of the university. In the period equivalent to our high school, both Boris and David studied at Eton, the “school of prime ministers”, about twenty came out of it, and of the kings, among others William attended it, second in line for the throne of grandmother Elizabeth. But given the age difference, Johnson is 56 today, Cameron 54, and they have never been to class together at Eton.
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Actually they are not in the same class, nor even in the same faculty, not even in Oxford, where Boris studies “classics”, that is the literature, history, language of ancient Greece and ancient Rome (not surprisingly in a TV interview a couple of years ago he recited the first verses of the Iliad in Greek by heart), while David is studying PPE, Politics-Philosophy-Economics, the preferred degree course of the ruling class.
But in Oxford they are both members of the famous, or perhaps infamous, Bullingdon Club, a student association that in theory should have organized conferences, in practice organizes great drinks in the pubs of the prestigious university citadel, which end by breaking everything, so then dad thinks about it. pay the bill.
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A club that has become so well known as an elite symbol that it inspired a stage drama, “Posh” in 2010, and a film, “The riot club” (literally “the brawler club”) in 2014. A photo of the authentic Bullingdon Club , whose associates wear a tailor-made nineteenth-century dandy uniform for official ceremonies, portrays them close together, Cameron standing braggart, Johnson sitting hard-nosed. An image that is worth a thousand words, emblematic of classism and entitlement, the feeling of legitimacy for everything.
At the time, both of them already dreamed of becoming prime minister, naturally for the same party in which they already play. If only because he is two years older, Boris is certain he will reach the finish line first and at a certain point it seems possible: Spectator, a conservative weekly historian, and is a young Tory deputy on whom many are betting, including the leader of the moment, Michael Howard, who appoints him as party vice president and minister of culture in the shadow government of the opposition.
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But one of the many scandals that have marked Johnson’s career breaks out: caught in an extra-marital relationship with Petronella Wyatt. a columnist of the weekly he directs, Boris at first denies, “lies”, then is forced to admit (the tabloids reveal that he got her pregnant twice, with both pregnancies resulting in a miscarriage), and Howard has him discharged from two important positions.
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It is 2004. The following year Tony Blair is re-elected premier defeating Howard, but in place of the latter as leader of the Tories and leader of the opposition comes Cameron, the other young deputy and rising star of the party, called “Tory Blair ”Because it seems the conservative version of Labor Tony. The younger of the two members of the Bullingdon Club is close to the goal, which he won in 2010, beating Gordon Brown, Blair’s successor, at the polls. For Boris Johnson it seems over. The rival has screwed him.
But it didn’t happen that way. Boris recycles himself by running for mayor of London, wins by ousting radical Labor Ken Livingston (known as “the Red” and needless to say more), gets re-elected, proves he can conquer a Labor fiefdom, because the capital has has always been a progressive majority, and to succeed it governs it as a moderate if not liberal conservative, attentive to the battles for the environment, cosmopolitan and open to immigration.
Cameron doesn’t appear too worried about his enemy’s resurrection. In private he calls him “a fool”. However, the Brexit referendum is on the horizon. How Boris will side is unclear. What is clear is that his choice in favor of leaving the European Union can split the conservative party, officially deployed to remain in the EU, and affect the outcome of the consultation. A dramatic conversation is called between the two in Downing Street. Johnson is said to go there with a price to get: the position of foreign minister and the promise that in the middle of the second term Cameron will step aside, giving way to him.
But David is convinced that he can win the referendum even without the need for Boris: in addition to him, all the opposition, Confindustria, the City establishment and the most authoritative newspapers are also to stay in Europe. So he only takes a few vague commitments and basically gives Johnson nothing. Who, a few days later, announces that he has decided: contradicting everything he had fought for as Mayor of London, chooses Brexit and becomes the leader of the campaign for the no to the EU.
The rest is recent history. Johnson wins the Brexit referendum. Cameron resigns the next day. Betrayed by Michael Gove, his deputy in the referendum campaign, who accuses him of not being up to being prime minister, “I tell you I know him well”, Boris has to wait a turn, letting Downing Street go Theresa May. Yes, she gives him the post of Foreign Minister, but that’s no longer enough: Johnson wages an internal war with no quarter, gets the parliamentary rejection of the agreement with Brussels painstakingly negotiated by May, who resigns in tears. And at that point the game is done, he triumphantly enters Downing Street, the predestined since the days of the Bullingdon Club.
It could be enough for him: Cameron has abandoned politics, he has started to lobbyist, that is, to make money. But he does it in a careless way, with perhaps undue pressure on Treasury Minister Rishi Sunak to get the loans that could save Greensill, the company for which he works as a well-paid consultant. Now it has even turned out that one of his advisors, when he was prime minister, was already working part-time for Greensill, a glaring conflict of interest.
“We want to assure public opinion on the absolute transparency of our government,” Johnson said to motivate the investigation into Cameron. The reality, the conservative house comments, is a bit different: he has never forgiven him for becoming prime minister before him, for having considered him a fool, for humiliating him in that interview in Downing Street, and now he is enjoying his revenge, a dish – as they say – to be served cold. Premier against ex-premier. Tory versus Tory. Bullingdon versus Bullingdon. Whatever happens, maybe they’ll make another movie out of it.
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