Any plans Boris Johnson may have of returning to the House of Commons in the future to challenge David Cameron for the Tory leadership are set to be upstaged at the general election. Boris is likely to get a new family rival in Parliament following the wafer thin selection of his younger brother, Jo Johnson for the Tory-held seat of Orpington in Kent. The seat became vacant after John Horam, the former Labour turned SDP turned Tory, decided to st and down. Jo, like Boris, is an Old Etonian with a first-class degree from Balliol College, Oxford. He started his career as a merchant banker, but then joined the Financial Times, working in Paris and South East Asia before heading up the paper’s influential Lex column. Tory insiders say the 39-year-old is as “quirky” as Boris and he bears an uncanny – if slimmer – resemblance to his older brother. He is married to Guardian columnist Amelia Gentleman. Jo is typical of some of the Cameron camp in that he has no experience of campaigning or standing for local government and Parliament. The Tory website shows he has raised some £12,500 out of a target £22,500 to fight the seat, but is running no active campaigns. According to Conservative Intelligence, the private subscribers newsletter, he is a Thatcherite on economics but socially liberal. His website claims he was driven to stand because of “Labour’s epic mismanagement of the economy”. One wonders if ambition will outstrip brotherly love.
