EVEN BEFORE HARRIET HARMAN married the trade unionist and Labour MP Jack Dromey, she felt the need to tone down her accent. Born on Harley Street to a barrister mother and doctor father, she was educated at St Paul’s Girls’ School. Her family tree extends from illustrious politicians to the descendants of high-profile peers: Neville Chamberlain is in there, along with numerous countesses and earls; David Cameron is a relative; Boris Johnson’s godmother, Lady Rachel Billington, is her cousin.
Johnson is central to what is likely to be Harman’s last major role as a parliamentarian (our longest-serving female MP is retiring after 40 years) as chair of the House of Commons Privileg-es Committee investigating “Partygate”. The forthcoming hearing could bury what remains of Johnson’s reputation. Politically, he is the antithesis of everything Harman stands for. Personally, he epitomises all that she abhors about the men in the class she was born into.
Yet in some ways they are each a caricature of the political extremes within that class. He is the Eton-educated, Bullingdon club Tory; she is a variation on those Lady Bountiful socialites of old that embraced socialism and slummed it in posh houses in poor postcodes. Johnson’s rise was fuelled by the belief that he was born to rule,
