Oxfordshire Life


Oxfordshire Life 'He's the Conservative Member of Parliament for Henley and offers odd shopping tips. Introducing the readers of Oxfordshire Life to the real Boris Johnson was a great pleasure.' Interview text > > www.oxfordshire-life.co.uk

Oxfordshire Character

He's the eccentric Conservative MP for Henley, lives near Thame and is known to his friends as 'mad as a box of frogs'. But how much of the real Boris Johnson do we know? Sandra Fraser went to find out. Photography by Mark Fairhurst.
Everyone has an opinion about that Boris Johnson, it seems. Whether it's the Mummies in the playground - ("He's rather shorter in real life than he appears on TV, isn't he?" "Is he very funny?") – or the school secretary – ("He's as mad as a box of frogs..."). And this, from a very discerning friend – "He has the kind of looks that make you want to mother him."

Ah, Boris. All that fluffing and stalling – and so self-effacing when I tell him people warm to him. "Do they? Well it's sweet of you to say so... really? Good."

When he arrives – late – for this interview, he's immediately invited to choose an on-the-hoof lunch. A pie, suggests his agent, Wayne Lawley, with chips? Mindful, perhaps, of his slip about parents pushing such devil-food through the school railings following Jamie Oliver's healthy eating campaign, he resists – "A pie – no, no, a pasty perhaps. Not chips. Maybe a tuna sandwich?"

It's the tuna sandwich that eventually turns up but it sits uneaten as Boris – one feels inclined to be on familiar terms even though his full name is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson; parries my questions and throws himself around in his office chair while we chat over a cup of coffee. One would never have called his predecessor, Michael Heseltine, by his forename. Only Mister was good enough for Tarzan, I remember. But with Boris you can't help feeling you know the man – that there are no barriers between him and his public.

Full interview coming soon.