Boris Johnson: the North London Metropolitan Liberal Elite Months in 1965
During her speech to the Tory Conference the current Home Secretary Priti Patel criticised the ‘North London Metropolitan Liberal Elite’.
She did not elaborate as to who such people might be.
However we do have evidence of one such person. They lived in an area that for a period elected a Liberal Democrat MP post the Iraq War and is certainly heavily in favour of remaining in the EU
Crouch End in North London is not the kind of place where you’d expect to find a Tory in 2019. But it was a little different 50 years ago and the area elected Tory MPs until 1992.
While delving into the (unpleasant) undergrowth and background to the current Premier’s rise to No.10 I noticed a brief sojourn in Crouch End.
In July 1965 Johnson’s father Stanley and mother Charlotte left Oxford for Crouch End. They stayed only to October 1965 deciding to spend the winter with Boris, who was just over a year old at the time and newly born Rachel (September 1965) in an Exmoor cottage.
I havent (yet) been able to locate where they lived in Crouch End (a blue plaque surely beckons) but perhaps even then the Johnsons were able to detect that the area was not really the kind of place for Tories, at least on Priti Patel’s analysis.
Alternatively we might argue that Johnson’s very youthful Crouch End months have marked him out,despite his many worse instincts as a member of the Metropolitan Elite..
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