Letter from PM's Eton classics master re-emerges

‘Boris seems affronted when criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility’: Letter goes viral from PM’s Eton classics master re-emerges despairing about his 17-year-old pupil’s ‘effortless superiority’

• The scathing report was sent from Martin Hammond to Stanley Johnson in 1982
• It rapped Boris for thinking he should be free of the obligations that bind others
• The classics schoolmaster also blasted  him for being ‘affronted when criticised’
• It comes as PM’s future hangs on knife edge over No 10 garden lockdown parties

A letter written by Boris Johnson’s classics master when he was at Eton has resurfaced saying he ‘believes it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception’.

The report, from Martin Hammond to Stanley Johnson in 1982, rapped the 17-year-old for thinking he should be free of the ‘network of obligation that binds everyone’.

The schoolmaster also slammed him for being ‘affronted when criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility’.

It comes as the PM’s future hangs on a knife edge as ministers pleaded with Tories MPs to wait for a probe into No 10 parties before calling for him to quit.

Mr Johnson yesterday apologised for attending a ‘bring your own booze’ party in the Downing Street garden in May 2020, during the first coronavirus lockdown.

But he insisted he believed it was a work event and could ‘technically’ have been within the rules.

An extract of Mr Hammond’s letter – which has gone viral on social media – was obtained by author Andrew Gimsom, who says he got Mr Hammond’s permission to reproduce it, as well as the green light from Stanley and Boris. 

The report, from Martin Hammond to Stanley Johnson in 1982, rapped the 17-year-old (pictured, when he was 15 at Eton) for thinking he should be free of the ‘network of obligation that binds everyone’

The classics schoolmaster also slammed him for being ‘affronted when criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility’. Pictured: Mr Johnson in the Commons yesterday

Mr Hammond’s letter painted a poor picture of the Prime Minister when he was a youngster

Boris Johnson in a pillow fight at Eton School, September 1979

A letter written by Boris Johnson ‘s classics master when he was at Eton has resurfaced saying he ‘believes it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception’. Pictured: Boris Johnson at Eton School, June 1979

With alumni in the highest echelons of government, business and society, you would think it’s reputation was unshakeable.

But a former Eton head master said Boris Johnson, alongside the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg and David Cameron, are giving the school ‘a bad name’.

Speaking in 2019, Tony Little, who led the school for 13 years, said it was ‘unfortunate’ that the trio are all Eton alumni, and admitted ‘we’d be better served as a nation’ if they hadn’t all gone to the same school.

Mr Johnson is the 20th prime minister to be educated at the school, with Mr Cameron being the 19th.

Mr Rees-Mogg, five years younger than the Prime Minister, followed them into the school.

Asked at Henley Literary Festival in 2019 if the three Conservative MPs were giving Eton ‘a bad name’, Mr Little replied: ‘Yes.’

Later expanding on his remark in a discussion about the place of private schools in society, he said: ‘Speaking personally, I think it is unfortunate at the moment and we’d all be better served as a nation if this particular clutch of people hadn’t been educated at the same school.

‘But you can over-egg that pudding, you can overstate it. I make no apologies at all for the quality of the education that Eton gives its young people, but what they choose to do with it of course is a different matter.’

He explained that while the behaviour of some of its famous alma-matter may attract more attention, Eton has many ‘unsung’ former students who go on to positively represent the school.

‘What is striking about the independent sector is the vast bulk of independent schools are serving a local community, very often with a skill or a track within the school that offers an education better than the state can provide’, he said.

‘And those are names people haven’t heard of.

‘The guy who founded Amnesty International for example, Friends of the Earth, these are old Etonians, unsung old Etonians. There is a particular focus on a certain bunch of people.’   

Mr Hammond’s letter painted a poor picture of the Prime Minister when he was a youngster.

He despaired about his pupil’s ‘effortless superiority’, excelling without apparently much effort.

He wrote: ‘Boris really has adopted a disgracefully cavalier attitude to his classical studies.

‘[He] 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 for the next half).

‘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 that binds everyone else.’

Mr Johnson had the prestigious education at Eton after winning a scholarship.

It was here he started calling himself Boris rather than Alexander.

Among his close friends were Darius Guppy, a businessman later convicted of fraud, and Charles Spencer, the brother of the late Diana, Princess of Wales.

Despite Mr Hammond’s intervention, Mr Johnson went on to win a scholarship to read classics at Balliol College, Oxford.

The report has resurfaced on social media in the wake of the the PM apologising for a party in the Downing Street garden during lockdown.

Mr Johnson’s confirmation he was at the event led to four Tory MPs publicly calling for him to quit, with more privately voicing concerns about his leadership.

He pulled out of a visit to a vaccination centre in Lancashire today, where he would have faced questions about his actions, because a family member tested positive.

Cabinet minister Brandon Lewis urged people to wait for the outcome of an inquiry by senior civil servant Sue Gray before making judgments on the PM’s future.

He said: ‘The Prime Minister has outlined that he doesn’t believe that he has done anything outside the rules.

‘If you look at what the investigation finds, people will be able to take their own view of that at the time.’

Cabinet ministers rallied round to defend him, but the late interventions of Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak – both tipped as potential successors – did little to instil confidence.

While Mr Johnson endured a difficult session of Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Mr Sunak spent the day away from London on a visit in Devon.

But Northern Ireland Secretary Mr Lewis told Sky News: ‘I have seen Rishi working with the Prime Minister.

‘They work absolutely hand-in-hand. I know that Rishi has got support for the Prime Minister.’

Mr Lewis insisted Mr Johnson was the right person to be Prime Minister and: ‘I think we will be able to go forward and win a general election.’

Mr Johnson faced open revolt from one wing of his party, as Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross urged him to quit, with almost all Tory MSPs supporting the call.

Mr Ross was dismissed as a ‘lightweight figure’ by Commons Leader Jacob Rees-Mogg following his intervention.

Boris Johnson (pictured today) has thanked Sir Jonathan, who is also affectionately known as JVT, for his work during the pandemic. He said he wished him the ‘very best for the future’

Met Police STILL refuses to probe ‘partygate’ bash after Boris Johnson admitted he WAS there for 25 minutes but ‘implicitly’ believed it was a ‘work event’ in ‘carefully-worded’ apology 

The Met today refused once again to probe the Downing Street garden party, after Boris Johnson admitted he attended the gathering for 25 minutes but claimed he ‘implicitly’ believed it was a work event in a ‘carefully-worded’ apology.

Scotland Yard reiterated there position that it was a matter for the Cabinet Office ‘based on the absence of evidence’ and its ‘policy’ not to investigate historical lockdown breaches.

Legal experts said the PM’s phrasing was ‘carefully worded’ to suggest his actions fell within the guidance.

Adam Wagner, an expert in Covid rules at Doughty Street Chambers, said: ‘The Johnson apology was carefully worded and obviously lawyered.

‘He said that he attended because he ”believed implicitly that this was a work event”, that ”with hindsight” he should have sent everyone back inside, and ”technically” it could be said to fall within the guidance.

‘The apology – when read carefully – was to the millions of people who ”wouldn’t see it in that way”, but because he also said technically it could be said to fall within the guidance he is implicitly saying the millions of people are wrong in their interpretation.’

One leading defence lawyer said the account would be ‘laughed out of court’ in a legal case.

In the House on Thursday, Mr Rees-Mogg defended his comments saying Mr Ross held office in the Conservative Party.

‘It seems to me that people who hold office ought to support the leader of the party. That is the honourable and proper thing to do,’ he said.

In Westminster, three other Tory MPs said Mr Johnson should go – Sir Roger Gale, former minister Caroline Nokes and chairman of the Public Affairs and Constitutional Affairs Committee William Wragg.

In the Commons on Wednesday the Prime Minister said he recognised ‘with hindsight I should have sent everyone back inside’ instead of spending 25 minutes in the No 10 garden thanking staff for their work on May 20 2020.

Downing Street insisted he had not been sent an email from his principal private secretary, Martin Reynolds, encouraging colleagues to go to the garden for ‘socially distanced drinks’ to ‘make the most of this lovely weather’ – and urging them to ‘bring your own booze’.

Mr Johnson told MPs ‘there were things we simply did not get right and I must take responsibility’.

Mr Lewis told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the Prime Minister was ‘very, very sincere’ in his apology for what happened.

‘He does recognise the anger and upset and frustration that people feel at what they perceive happened at No 10,’ Mr Lewis said.

‘He recognises that and takes responsibility.’

Former minister Philip Dunne told Times Radio: ‘I think the Prime Minister was quite right to apologise yesterday, and I think it is right that we wait to see what the investigation from Sue Gray establishes.

‘People will then have to suffer the consequences of whatever happens.’

For Labour, shadow communities secretary Lisa Nandy told ITV’s Good Morning Britain that relatives of those who died during the pandemic are ‘appalled, horrified and retraumatised’ by the events, asking how senior ministers could have been telling the country what to do during the lockdown ‘and yet they weren’t doing it themselves’.

Meanwhile, Mr Johnson’s Government suffered another blow as one of its most effective communicators during the pandemic announced his departure.

Professor Sir Jonathan Van-Tam is to leave his role as England’s deputy chief medical officer at the end of March.

Sir Jonathan is to take up a new role as the Pro-Vice Chancellor for the faculty of medicine and health sciences at University of Nottingham.

A YouGov poll for the Times has laid bare the scale of the damage being suffered by the government, showing the Tories slumping five points to just 28 per cent in less than a week

From Eton to Oxford to Westminster to Downing Street: Boris Johnson’s family, career..and colourful love life

Early life: Eton and Oxford

Prime Ministers who went to Eton: List of leaders from same Berkshire school stretches back to 1721

Former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was educated at Eton

Current Prime Minister Boris Johnson was educated at Eton college and joins a long line of PM’s who went to the fee-paying school. 

His predecessor David Cameron also went to Eton, which currently costs around £42,000 per year. 

Former Prime Ministers Harold Macmillan and Robert Anthony Eden also attended the Berkshire school, as did William Ewart Gladstone.

The list of PM’s who attended the prestigious school extends all the way back to  Robert Walpole, who served as Prime Minsiter from 1721–1742.

And Boris Johnson, like every prime minister since 1937 who had attended university, except Gordon Brown, also studied at Oxford.  

Robert Anthony Eden also attended the Berkshire school

Boris Johnson was born Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson in New York on June 19, 1964.

His East Coast birth gave him joint US/UK citizenship.

Known as Al by his close family, his father is Stanley Johnson, a former Conservative MEP. He and Boris’s mother Charlotte divorced in 1979.

His younger brother Jo is the Tory MP for Orpington and his sister Rachel is a journalist and commentator who was a Change UK candidate at the European elections in May. He also has another brother, Leo.

Among his ancestors he counts a Turkish secular Muslim journalist, Ali Kemal, who he has referenced during his leadership campaign as a sign of his One Nation Conservative credentials.

He received a prestigious education at Eton after winning a scholarship. It was here that he started calling himself Boris rather than Alexander.

Among his close friends were Darius Guppy, a businessman later convicted of fraud, and Charles Spencer, the brother of the late Diana, Princess of Wales.

He went on to study classics at Balliol College, Oxford in the late 1980s, where among his contemporaries were many students who would go on to become leading politicians, including David Cameron and George Osborne. 

All three were part of the infamous Bullingdon Club, a debauched clique of upper class students which gained a reputation for riotous drunken antics.

This may have been a contributory factor in his gaining a 2:1 degree rather than first class honours.

After leaving Oxford he married his first wife Allegra Mostyn-Owen.

Journalism career 

Mr Johnson left Oxford and embarked on a career in journalism after landing a job at the Times. But it was a short-lived appointment – he was swiftly fired for making up a quote. 

He claimed an esteemed academic had said King Edward II and his male lover Piers Gaveston would have had liaisons in a newly discovered palace – which was not built until long after Gaveston has been murdered.

He enjoyed more success at the Telegraph, where he became Brussels corespondent and a columnist. 

His critical dispatches from the EU capital have been credited with helping shape euroscepticism in the UK. 

But he also attracted controversy. 

In 1990 a phone call between him and old Eton friend Darius Guppy was recorded. In it he agreed to give Guppy the contact details of a News of the World reporter investigating his business affairs so he could give him ‘a couple of black eyes’. 

Mr Johnson with his sister Rachel and friends at Viscount Althorp’s 21st birthday party in the 1980s

Mr Johnson with former Telegraph editor Max Hastings, who branded him a ‘cavorting charlatan’

Mr Johnson while working for the Daily Telegraph

The attack never happened and Mr Johnson said in 2013 he was just ‘humouring’ an old acquaintance.

However he did not make friends everywhere. His former boss at the paper, Max Hastings, wrote in the Daily Mail in 2012: ‘If the day ever comes that Boris Johnson becomes tenant of Downing Street, I shall be among those packing my bags for a new life in Buenos Aires or suchlike, because it means that Britain has abandoned its last pretensions to be a serious country.’

And last year he branded Mr Johnson a ‘cavorting charlatan’ in an article for the Mirror.

Mr Johnson went on to become editor of the Tory bible, the Spectator magazine, before setting his sights on political as well as journalistic power. 

MP for Henley 

Mr Johnson was elected MP for Henley at the 2001 General Election as the Tories tried to recover from the landslide election four years earlier. 

The seat had previously been held by Michael Heseltine, the trade minister who tried and failed to replace Margaret Thatcher as prime minister.

Mr Johnson rugby tackled Maurizio Gaudina during a England v Germany ‘Legends Match’ for charity at the Madjeski Stadium, Reading in 2006

Mr Johnson and then wife Marina Wheeler at the 2001 election, when he became MP for Henley in Oxfordshire

Mr Johnson was sacked as an arts minister after his affair with Petronella Wyatt was revealed in 2004

He would go on to hold the seat until 2008 but again his time there was controversial. 

He was made an arts minister by then Tory leader Michael Howard  but was sacked after it was revealed he had been in a long-term affair with journalist Petronella Wyatt, who had an abortion after falling pregnant.

He remained unbowed however and hit the headlines again in 2006 when, during a England v Germany ‘Legends Match’ for charity at the Madjeski Stadium, Reading he rugby tackled Maurizio Gaudina.

Despite the furore over his affair he increased his majority at the 2005 General Election before plotting the next stage of his career.

Mayor of London 

Mr Johnson really jumped into the public consciousness when he upset the left-wing incumbent mayor of London Ken Livingstone to take on the job in 2008. He would go on to serve two terms in what is regarded as a heavily Labour-orientated city.

Mr Johnson campaigning to be mayor of London in 2008

He beat former Labour MP Ken Livingstone

His time in City Hall included the huge spectacle of the London Olympics in 2012, which was where Boris managed to make a huge spectacle of himself.

Dangling helplessly from a zip-wire while waving British Union Jack flags, his attempt to publicise a party in one of London’s parks became one of the most memorable non-sporting moments of the games

Dangling helplessly from a zip-wire while waving British Union Jack flags, his attempt to publicise a party in one of London’s parks became one of the most memorable non-sporting moments of the games.

‘It’s going well … Get me a ladder,’ the portly then-London Mayor jovially shouted as the crowds below laughed along after he became stuck.

For most politicians, such a turn of events would be an humiliating embarrassment that could overshadow their careers. 

For the man famed for his mop of unruly blond hair and expected to be named as Britain’s next prime minister, it was par for the course. 

Later in his tenure he managed to gaff in front of the cameras again. Mr Johnson, a keen rugby player in his youth, wiped out a 10-year-old Japanese schoolboy during what was meant to be a lighthearted game in Tokyo during a 2015 trade mission.       

Mr Johnson, a keen rugby player in his youth, wiped out a 10-year-old Japanese schoolboy during what was meant to be a lighthearted game in Tokyo during a 2015 trade mission

The boy was unharmed by the robust challenge

Mr Johnson has made much of his time in London during the campaign to become prime minister, hailing his role int he Olympics and also his action to decrease the crime rate.

But he also attracted controversy. His opponents accused him of being profligate with public money, backing expensive projects like the Routemaster-style Boris Buses, the Emirates Airline cable car, his proposed Thames Estuart airport dubbed ‘Boris Island’ and a plan for a Garden Bridge across the Thames that was pulled after receiving tens of millions of pounds of public cash.  

He came to wider public attention with his star turns on the BBC’s popular satirical TV quiz show ‘Have I Got News For You’.  

MP for Uxbridge, Vote Leave and Foreign Secretary 

His double-term in London set up Mr Johnson for a return to the Commons, with his name already being touted as a potential leader. 

He stood in the suburban London seat of Uxbridge in 2015, taking a 10,000 majority. 

The following year he made himself the centre of attention in the EU referendum campaign as he wavered over whether to back Leave or Remain in the upcoming EU referendum.

He eventually revealed he would back Leave alongside then ally Michael Gove. This included posing controversially in front of a bus pledging to give the NHS £350 million a week that was sent instead to Brussels. 

Mr Johnson controversially campaigned in front of a bus pledging to give the NHS £350million a week that was sent instead to Brussels

The campaign pledge was later the foundation of a short-live legal case against Mr Johnson by Remainers

After the famous Leave win and David Cameron’s resignation he was a favourite to step into Downing Street after his old Eton and Oxford chum.

But his campaign was rocked when his chief of staff Mr Gove walked out and announced he would stand against him.  It prompted Mr Johnson to drop out of the race and Theresa May would eventually win. 

But he was immediately in Government as a surprise appointment to foreign Secretary. 

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has languished in a Tehran jail since 2016, which some blame being levelled at Mr Johnson

His two year term in the role was much criticised, mainly over his handling of the plight of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian charity worker jailed for spying in Tehran in 2016.

He told the House of Commons in November 2017 that she had been in the country training journalists, which was seized on as proof of her guilt by the hardline Islamic regime. She had in fact been on holiday visiting relatives. 

She remains in custody to this day. 

Mr Johnson was in post through the first two years of Theresa May’s attempts to hammer out a Brexit deal.

By the summer of 2018 rumours of growing Cabinet discontent over the proposed deal reached fever-pitch.

After Mrs may published her Cheqers Agreement white paper in July, Brexit Secretary David Davis and his deputy Steve Baker quit in protest.

Days after the hardline Brexiteers had walked, Mr Johnson also quit. 

Leadership campaign and Carrie Symonds 

Mr Johnson became a vocal critic of Mrs May from the backbenches amid consistent rumours that he would challenge her for the leadership.

She faced a no confidence vote in December but survived, narrowing his opportunity to run. 

In the meantime Mr Johnson was back in the headlines because of his private life.

His second marriage to barrister marina Wheeler, the mother of four of his children, finally collapsed as it was revealed he was in a relationship with Carrie Symonds, 31 , a former Tory communications director.

Mr Johnson’s relationship with Carrie Symonds was revealed

Their relationship, rows and whether she will follow him to Downing Street have made many headlines.  

By May, after three failed attempts to get a Withdrawal Agreement through parliament, Theresa May’s time was up and she laid out a time table to quit as Tory leader and Prime Minister.

Boris was one of more than a dozen candidates to stand in the largest ever field for a leadership election. 

And for a man who loves the limelight he ran a very, very covert campaign, initially only appearing in public when he had to, at hustings and debates he could no avoid.

It led to accusations that he was hiding away in order to avoid making a gaff that could harm his chances of winning. 

It did not mean that there were not some outre photo ops. 

By heck: Boris posed with a string of bangers in the leadership campaign

He also got his hands dirty shearing a sheep in Yorkshire

But the smell of the wool left a lot to be desired

Photographs of him posing with a string of Heck sausages while campaigning in Yorkshire sparked a social media campaign for a boycott of the firm by Remain supporters. 

And he was willing to get his hands dirty shearing a sheep the same day at Nosterfield farm, near Ripon.

Mr Johnson’s father Stanley was at today’s unveiling of the leadership vote, in which his son won 66 per cent

Mr Johnson was always the favourite to win the election, ahead in all the polls and 1/100 on with the bookies this week. 

And he duly won in the result at the Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre in central London. 

With his father and siblings looking on he won with 66 per cent of the vote. 

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