BACK in the 1980s, Oxford University was like a scientist’s secret laboratory, where, in a tightly controlled environment, a new species of political animal was being created out of whatever material came to hand.
The components found at the back of the garage were certainly random: Boris Johnson, Theresa May, David Cameron, Michael Gove, Dominic Cummings. Few of them were traditional material for the very top job in the country. BoJo was a blusterer, May was diffident, Gove a bit odd, Cummings anarchic. Only Cameron, an Etonian like Boris, had the old-school qualities – a caste-iron sense of entitlement – commonly found in leaders of state.
