Boris Johnson & exams. Fecklessness & falling asleep but ‘one of us’
Boris Johnson, has tweeted that those getting A level results today should be proud of their achievements in a challenging year.
Johnson has an interesting history when it comes exams.
Despite consulting three biographies of Johnson (Bower, Gimson, Purnell) its not possible to discern exactly how did in his A Levels at Eton. They were not however in such exclusive ruling class circles the key to Johnson’s advance. Rather that was passing the scholarship exam to Balliol which he certainly did.
At Balliol College, Oxford University he narrowly missed a first after a viva (personal examination by tutors).
As Sonia Purnell notes in her biography Just Boris, he had spent much of the last term partying rather than studying. After falling asleep in a classics class shortly before his final exams his Master at Balliol noted that he might just get a third class degree.
Instead he managed a good Upper Second on the basis not of hard work or intellectual achievement but because as one Don quoted by Purnell suggests he was ‘so evidently a good egg’.
Both at Eton and Balliol one can find numerous comments from tutors. They don’t doubt his intelligence but also his ‘fecklessness’ and laziness. He was more interested in rugby or at Oxford the Union.
His success at both places rested of course on his ability to pass exams but also clearly because he was regarded as ‘one of us’ whose numerous failings could be overlooked in favour of his, to his tutors, attributes.
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