Boris Johnson showed ‘disgracefully cavalier’ attitude to studies, school letter reveals

Rory Stewart reads note from Eton to Royal Albert Hall crowd

Rory Stewart highlighted Boris Johnson’s ”disgracefully cavalier” attitude to his studies as a schoolboy, when he read a letter from Eton College to an audience at the Royal Albert Hall.

Mr Stewart – who announced on Friday he was stepping down as MP at the next election and will stand for London mayor as an independent – was participating in Letters Live, a regular event which sees performers read letters from around the world in recent and historical times to a crowd.

“Boris really has adopted a disgracefully cavalier attitude to his classical studies,” wrote Martin Hammond, who taught Mr Johnson classics at school and served as his housemaster.

The letter was sent on 10 April 1982 to Stanley Johnson, the prime minister’s father.

“Boris sometimes seems affronted when criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility [and surprised at the same time that he was not appointed Captain of the School...],” Mr Hammond wrote.

“I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.”

The teacher added: “I’m enormously fond of Boris, and saddened that he should have brought upon himself this sort of report.

“All is not lost, by any means; he can easily effect a full return of grace by showing obvious commitment next [term].”

A second letter, sent by Mr Hammond in July 1982, suggested matters did not improve.

“Boris is pretty impressive when success can be achieved by pure intelligence unaccompanied by hard work,” he said.

“[But] he doesn’t have the instincts of a real scholar, and tends to ‘sell himself short’.

“He is, in fact, pretty idle about it all ... Boris has something of a tendency to assume that success and honours will drop into his lap: not so, he must work for them.”

The first document spread online when it was posted on Twitter in July 2019 by the Letters of Note account.

Mr Stewart, who also studied at Eton, read an extract from the first letter on Thursday, to cheers from the crowd.

On stage he said the letter constituted his resignation from the Conservative Party, in an apparent joke.

His fellow participants included Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia Colman and Stephen Fry.

Mr Stewart formally resigned from the Conservative Party hours later, on Friday morning.

“It’s been a great privilege to serve Penrith and The Border for the last ten years, so it is with sadness that I am announcing that I will be standing down at the next election and that I have also resigned from the Conservative Party,” he said, in a post on Twitter.

Additional reporting by agencies