--:-- Sean Rameswaram: On Tuesday, the Conservative Party announced the winner of its own leadership election. Jeremy Hunt, 46,656. Boris Johnson, 92,153. and therefore I give notice that Boris Johnson is elected as the leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party.
--:-- [Sound of a door opening]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The Conservative Party is the largest party in the House of Commons. In coalition with a smaller party, they have a majority in the House of Commons and that makes him Prime Minister.
--:-- [Sound of a car driving]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: After that, on Wednesday, we saw the formal changeover of power. Door of number 10 opening here is the Prime Minister and her husband, Philip. And this was when Theresa May, the ex-leader of the Conservative Party, but still remaining as Prime Minister, went down to Buckingham Palace to see the Queen she'd left out the back of 10 Downing Street.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm about to go to Buckingham Palace to tender my resignation, to Her Majesty the Queen and to advise her to ask Boris Johnson to form a new administration.
--:-- [Sound of a car driving]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She's going with her husband. To the Black Jaguar, Prime Minister Theresa May, saying goodbye to Downing Street, which has been her home for the past three years and a few days.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It was driven down the one-mile straight journey in central London to Buckingham Palace in the Prime Ministerial car. The Queen will be waiting on the first floor in her audience room.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She went in for the audience with the Queen. Once she'd finished in that meeting, Theresa May left Buckingham Palace in a private car.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So that first moment of that handover of power has happened. And from that moment, Boris Johnson was driven down the Mall, the grandest street in Britain, to Buckingham Palace.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Boris Johnson just comes behind us in the car behind us right now. where he went in for his own audience with the Queen, where she appointed him Prime Minister.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: When he comes back out of this building, Alistair, he will be Prime Minister.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This all happened on Wednesday. When he left Buckingham Palace, he left in the Prime Minister's car for the short journey back to Number 10 Downing Street, where he took over as Prime Minister and gave that speech on the steps of Downing Street yesterday.
--:-- [Sound of a car driving]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Good afternoon. I have just been to see Her Majesty the Queen who has invited me to form a government and I have accepted.
--:-- [Sound of a car driving]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The people who bet against Britain are going to lose their shirts because we're going to restore trust in our democracy. And we're going to fulfill the repeated promises of Parliament to the people and come out of the EU on October the 31st. No ifs or buts.
--:-- Tom McTague: Am I allowed to call Boris Johnson Bojo?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can do. We all call him Bojo here, or lots of people do.
--:-- Tom McTague: It gets to the heart of the Boris Johnson enigma, really. He's one of the few politicians who's known by his first name.
--:-- Tom McTague: And he's this kind of lovable rogue figure. The thing I've got to find out, really, is most politicians, as far as I can work out, are pretty incompetent and then have a veneer of competence.
--:-- Tom McTague: Yes. You do seem to do it the other way round. Yes. You can't rule out the possibility, you know, beneath the elaborately constructed veneer of a, you know, blithering idiot.
--:-- Tom McTague: There are lurks of blithering idiot. Well, which is it? No, of course not. No, no, no, my dear fellow.
--:-- Tom McTague: What's this about you driving a tractor through a barn, then?
--:-- Tom McTague: And this is part of his appeal. It makes him seem like he's a different kind of politician. It's part of the charm. It's part of the celebrity.
--:-- Tom McTague: And, you know, you speak to journalists and they get very frustrated about this. But that is how he is known.
--:-- Tom McTague: So how did Bojo land this gig at the top of the British government? Because that's what you'd really like, isn't it?
--:-- Tom McTague: You've been, I think, people in your life have quit. What is your ex-mother-in-law said, Boris is very ambitious and always said he wanted to be prime minister?
--:-- Tom McTague: Yeah, my ex-mother-in-law is in many ways a wonderful woman. Did I used to say that? Maybe I did.
--:-- Tom McTague: I suppose all politicians in the end are like kind of crazed wasps in a jam jar, each individually convinced that they're going to make it and get out and survive.
--:-- Tom McTague: And of course, I think I got lost in my metaphor here about the wasps in the jam jar. But the point is, the point is...
--:-- Tom McTague: It's been a lifelong quest for Boris Johnson. Boris Johnson was born in Manhattan. He was a US citizen for a while.
--:-- Tom McTague: He had hopes of being used to joke about being US president and world king instead of British prime minister.
--:-- Tom McTague: So he's had to tone down his ambitions somewhat. But he led the campaign to take Britain out of the European Union and won, costing David Cameron his job as prime minister.
--:-- Tom McTague: After that, he was appointed foreign secretary on the basis, Theresa May thought, that keep your enemies close and only for him to resign from government and then launch a campaign against her from the back benches, which cost her her job as prime minister.
--:-- Tom McTague: So he's effectively taken out two prime ministers and now is being appointed prime minister himself.
--:-- Tom McTague: She never fully had the party behind her, does he? No, absolutely not.
--:-- Tom McTague: He does not have the party fully behind him. Now he has 75 or more of the Conservative Party electorate that have voted for him
--:-- Tom McTague: Now that gives him some protection because all those MPs members of Parliament who were opposed to him, realise that their own voters and constituents back in their local constituencies like him.
--:-- Tom McTague: So that gives Boris some protection. But there is absolutely no doubt there is a significant minority of Conservative Party MPs who, A, don't think he's fit to be Prime Minister, and B, just don't like the guy at all.
--:-- Tom McTague: You know, so this is a major problem for him. And it wouldn't be a problem if he had a huge majority, if the Conservative Party were the dominant player in the House of Commons.
--:-- Tom McTague: But that's not the case. They have an absolutely wafer-thin majority with the support of a small group of Northern Irish MPs from a different party.
--:-- Tom McTague: So, you know, Boris has got the same problems as Theresa May when it comes to Brexit. What's his plan?
--:-- Tom McTague: Well, you know, if we knew that, and if he knew that, you know, life would be a lot easier.
--:-- Tom McTague: I don't think he has a clear plan. He has an idea to renegotiate the deal that Theresa May negotiated, and then to put that to MPs and to get out of the European Union with a deal.
--:-- Tom McTague: Most people think that is nigh on impossible. The European Union have said the deal on the table is not up for negotiation.
--:-- Tom McTague: And he doesn't have a majority to leave without a deal. But he is confident that push comes to shove. He'll be able to take the UK out with or without a deal by October the 31st.
--:-- Tom McTague: It'll be a Halloween Brexit. Which sounds funny, but is consequential.
--:-- Tom McTague: We've talked about it on the show before. But Tom, could you just remind us what a no-deal Brexit would potentially mean for the UK and for the EU?
--:-- Tom McTague: No deal rips up the status quo. All the trade deals that you have with the EU, the legal structure for how your businesses interact and sell things to the EU and import things from the EU, it all goes at the stroke of a pen.
--:-- Tom McTague: And that's what's so radical. So you go from having zero tariffs on each other's goods and having exactly the same rules made in Brussels with British input that apply to all goods crisscrossing across Europe to having tariffs immediately on goods crossing the border and different rules made in different places.
--:-- Tom McTague: So it's a dramatic upheaval and nobody is really sure what the impact would be because nobody has ever done anything like it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He is prime minister of the UK at a time of genuine historic significance, you know. He has the power to do something great or disastrous. You know he's almost certain to go down in the history books for doing something big.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Now we just don't know what that is at the moment. Whether he's going to take Britain out without a deal, which would be revolutionary, or he will somehow manage to succeed where Theresa May failed and take the UK out with a deal.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: After the break, a bit of background on this Bojo who's about to do something that's never really been done.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Our friends at Stitcher would love me to tell you We've got a brand new podcast called The Secret Lives of Black Women. It's about black women striving to live their best lives and trying not to lose their minds in the process.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's hosted by Sharla and Lauren. When they first met, they were two of three black women in their department at work. Together, they all dish advice on how to overcome barriers that black women deal with on a constant basis when they're just trying to do their jobs.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: My manager at the time revealed to me that I had been a diversity hire at that first job. And she said it to me in a way that was just like, like she felt bad for me. Like, oh, you were a diversity hire. And I just remember when she told me that, like, first of all, why was that a big secret?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Like, as if it was something that she had to keep from me. And second, why is that something that I'm supposed to be ashamed about?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Look for The Secret Lives of Black Women wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you like what you hear, you can hit subscribe.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Tom, what's Bojo's background? Where'd he grow up? What were his early days like?
--:-- Tom McTague: So he grew up all over the place. He was born in Manhattan. His father and mother met at Oxford University.
--:-- Tom McTague: His father was a poet. His mother is an artist. They followed the father to America, who held various different jobs in academia at the World Bank.
--:-- Tom McTague: They actually spent as much time in the United States and continental Europe as they did in Britain growing up.
--:-- Tom McTague: When he came back from the US, they spent time in London, and then they moved to Brussels, where the father was working for the European Commission, ironically.
--:-- Tom McTague: And it was there that Boris Johnson became fluent in French and attended a European school and met his future wife.
--:-- Tom McTague: And at that point, his mother, she had a mental breakdown, a very serious breakdown and had to return to England where she went to a psychiatric hospital for nine months.
--:-- Tom McTague: So Boris and his sister were sent to boarding school in England from when he was 10 or 11 and then he got into the most prestigious boarding school in England called Eton.
--:-- Tom McTague: He then goes to Oxford University. So he's treading the path of the elite in England from Eton to Oxford studying classics and over time he emerges from this kind of bookish, reserved child into this flamboyant, extrovert, centre of attention kid who's very popular and very academically gifted.
--:-- Tom McTague: What does Boris do once he gets out of this sort of elite educational world? He then goes back to London where he becomes a journalist, first for the Times of London, where he actually gets sacked for making up a quote from his godfather.
--:-- Tom McTague: It was awful. I remember a deep, deep sense of shame and guilt and just not knowing how to sort it out. And it was a bit of a bummer, frankly.
--:-- Tom McTague: And then he joins the Daily Telegraph, which is the biggest, was the biggest conservative daily newspaper in the UK.
--:-- Tom McTague: And that's when his career really takes off. And he moves back to Brussels as a young reporter to become their Europe correspondent, reporting on the European Union from Brussels.
--:-- Tom McTague: And he becomes a superstar reporter over in Brussels, sending copy back to London of these dastardly attempts by European bureaucrats to stifle British democracy, import crazy rules on what we can and cannot do.
--:-- Tom McTague: I was just chucking these rocks over the garden wall. I'd listened to this amazing crash from the greenhouse next door over in England.
--:-- Tom McTague: Everything I wrote from Brussels was having this amazing explosive effect on the Tory party. And it really gave me this, I suppose, rather weird sense of power.
--:-- Tom McTague: And these stories were lapped up back in London. He was Margaret Thatcher's favorite journalist, it's reported.
--:-- Tom McTague: He later became editor of The Spectator, a conservative magazine, and then he got into parliament as conservative MP.
--:-- Tom McTague: So I guess as a journalist, if you get a reputation for making stuff up, it can kind of present itself as a problem. So it made perfect sense for him to get into politics.
--:-- Tom McTague: Yeah, I think he has a reputation for taking risks and doing things that you would think would kill off other people's careers and doesn't kill off his.
--:-- Tom McTague: And there's something about him that people forgive things. It's because he burns brighter than most people. He's more charismatic.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In columns before that you've written, you've referred to black people with watermelon smiles. You've talked about... In a wholly satirical way, by the way.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Can I finish, please? Yes, of course you can.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Tank-top bum boys, women in burqas who look like letterboxes. And I want to put it to you that you're not homophobic. You've supported gay rights.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You've supported women's right to wear the burqa. But you'll just say anything to get a laugh.
--:-- Tom McTague: No, I think if you look at each and every one of those columns or articles, you'll find that the quotations have been wrenched out of context, in many cases made to mean the opposite.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He sounds like a dubious journalist, Tom. How does he fare as a member of Parliament?
--:-- Tom McTague: He carried on being the editor of The Spectator. He managed to combine the two jobs at the same time.
--:-- Tom McTague: After that, he was actually sacked for lying about having an affair. But again, that didn't derail him.
--:-- Tom McTague: A few years later, he was the only candidate the Conservatives thought who could win the London mayoralty.
--:-- Tom McTague: Now, London is an overwhelmingly left-wing liberal city. And this was a city that twice voted for Boris Johnson.
--:-- Tom McTague: He was a national celebrity at this point, having become famous for TV appearances when he was funny and bumbling and kind of comedic figure.
--:-- Tom McTague: You know, there are some jokes about Boris Johnson where David Cameron got into trouble because he didn't know the price of a loaf of bread.
--:-- Tom McTague: And he said, oh, oh, I don't know because I have a bread maker. And this was caused hilarity because it was just so out of touch with ordinary people, you know, who buy their loaves of bread down the shop every day or every week.
--:-- Tom McTague: And Boris Johnson was asked the same question. He said, I'm not, you mustn't. Do you buy a bread? I can tell you the price of a bottle of champagne. How about that?
--:-- Tom McTague: So when it came to the London Merrill Tea, they chose Boris and then he won it again four years later.
--:-- Tom McTague: So he served eight years as London mayor, and that was the time that London hosted the Olympics.
--:-- Tom McTague: This was his high point as a popular figure, both with young liberal voters and with conservative voters on the outskirts of London in the suburbs.
--:-- Tom McTague: He was an extremely popular figure. There was a moment where he was leading a crowd of thousands of people in Hyde Park, one of the central parks in London, on the opening weekend of the Olympics.
--:-- Tom McTague: and a day or so before, you'd have Mitt Romney who had come over to the UK and he'd questioned whether the UK was ready to host the Olympics and Boris had stood on stage and whipped the crowd up into a sort of frenzy saying...
--:-- Tom McTague: There's a guy called Mitt Romney who wants to know whether we're ready. He wants to know whether we're ready. Are we ready?
--:-- Tom McTague: The crowd was sort of cheering at this And then they started this chant. Boris Boris Boris Boris Boris Boris
--:-- Tom McTague: And I spoken to his aides who have said he will never get to that level of popularity again That was his greatest moment as a politician because he was a unifying figure based on optimism and a kind of can-do spirit.
--:-- Tom McTague: From that moment on, he's never quite been able to hit those heights. He's become a much more divisive figure instead.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The Brexit campaign really gets underway in earnest while Boris is still mayor of London, right? How does he, how does he wade himself into the campaign?
--:-- Tom McTague: I apologize for being slow with coming down. You know, you want to ask my views on Europe, don't you? Let me tell you, let me tell you where I've, where I've got to.
--:-- Tom McTague: People were desperate to find out what he was going to do. And he ummed and ahed and waited up for such a long time, as long as he possibly could.
--:-- Tom McTague: And the story goes that the weekend before he announced it in his newspaper column, he actually wrote two columns, one in favour of staying in the European Union and one against, so that he could sort of test the arguments of what he thought was strongest.
--:-- Tom McTague: But after a great deal of heartache, I don't think there's anything else I can do. I will be advocating vote leave because I want a better deal for the people of this country.
--:-- Tom McTague: And in the end, lots of people on both sides, whether you're a Remainer or a Lever, will say that he was absolutely crucial in tipping the balance to Brexit.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So what does he do after the Brexit vote? So after the Brexit vote, all hell broke loose.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: David Cameron that morning announced he was resigning as prime minister because he didn't have, He wasn't able to see through the vote to leave the European Union.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He didn't have the authority to do so. So that sparked the first Conservative leadership contest in 2016.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I am honoured and humbled to have been chosen by the Conservative Party to become its leader. Essentially what happened is all the Brexiteers stabbed each other in the back and none of them made it through.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And Theresa May came through the middle, who was a Remainer, and swooped in and stole the crown.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We are living through an important moment in our country's history. Following the referendum, we face a time of great national change.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I know because we're Great Britain that we will rise to the challenge.
--:-- Tom McTague: After Theresa May won the election, she then appointed Boris Johnson Foreign Secretary, resurrecting his career, giving him the power and the tools to then kill her off two years later.
--:-- Tom McTague: It's a kind of extraordinary story.
--:-- Tom McTague: A self-proclaimed blithering idiot, a known liar, a known racist, will now make the UK's most consequential decision since, like, what, World War II?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Remind me how this happened.
--:-- Tom McTague: Well, I think it's partly because the kind of politicians that Boris is evidently not don't do the job that they say that they're going to do, or that is the perception of the public at large.
--:-- Tom McTague: You know, we've had some quite big events that have happened in the UK, just as in the US, that have shaken people's trust in the political system.
--:-- Tom McTague: So we've had the Iraq war under Tony Blair in 2003. And then you had the financial crash, which is probably the biggest event of our lifetimes in 2007, 2008.
--:-- Tom McTague: Which in the UK, because its financial sector is so much more outsized compared to the rest of the economy than in the US, meant an enormous bailout from taxpayers to the banks, which has led to 10 years of austerity for public services, schools, hospitals, all of those kind of things.
--:-- Tom McTague: So ordinary people paying the cost for a financial crash, which they don't really understand, had nothing to do with them and seems to benefit people that they don't particularly like in the city of London.
--:-- Tom McTague: So this is the background for I think what is happening now and a frustration that seemingly sensible straight-laced politicians like Theresa May can't do what they say they're going to do like take Britain out of the European Union you know so they go for a guy who looks completely different, sounds different, acts different, and is a little bit, in some ways, more like them in that he looks flawed and he makes jokes when he perhaps shouldn't make jokes.
--:-- Tom McTague: But in other ways, he's completely not like them. You know, he's an elitist who speaks Latin and reads Homer, you know, so he's a real contradiction.
--:-- Tom McTague: He's hard to grasp what he is. And that's part of his success. He's all things to all people.
--:-- Tom McTague: The point is that in a Darwinian way, in a Darwinian way, the public needs politicians to want to get as far as they can, and that's Hyde.
--:-- Tom McTague: In a Darwinian way, are you fit enough to survive? Well, that's... Probably not, but in an evolutionary sense, it's vital that everybody should have the delusion that they could.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Tom McTague wrote a big piece about Boris this week for The Atlantic. It's titled Boris Johnson Meets His Destiny.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can find it at theatlantic.com.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm Sean Rameswaram. This is Today Explained.
