On June 30 Boris Johnson made his sensational announcement that he would not be a candidate in the forthcoming Tory leadership election. In a letter in The Times on July 1—the leading letter that day—Alistair Lexden regretted that Boris had not undertaken a full political training in the late 1980s which would have supplied him with the extra qualities he needed for success.
Sir, Boris Johnson has a surfeit of self-confidence and a lack of self-discipline. Both would have been curbed if he had taken up my offer of a job in the Conservative Research Department in July 1988, a place where his father Stanley had mastered the political trade. He would have learnt to look at political issues in rigorous detail in order to write long factual briefing documents about them. He would gained the qualities that he conspicuously lacks. A few weeks before David Cameron had snapped up a post dealing with trade and industry issues.
Lord Lexden
Director, Conservative Political Centre, 1988-97
House of Lords