[drbw]

Maybe, but he's always been lazy and unwilling to do much actual work, apparently [1] his headmaster wrote to his father in 1982:

  Boris really has adopted a disgracefully cavalier attitude to his classical studies... 
  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
  for 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 which binds everyone else.

[1]: https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/letter-to-boris-johns...

[barry-cotter]

No one gets to be a Telegraph columnist without doing a ton of work, never mind Prime Minster of the UK. Being unwilling to do work purely on other people’s say so is a separate trait from being lazy. He also has a much better command of Ancient Greek than anyone unwilling to apply themselves could acquire however wonderful the teachers the were exposed to.

This is quite apart from the question of whether he’s a buffoon. If anyone but Corbyn was in charge of Labour the Conservatives would be cruising to a large electoral defeat soon but we don’t live in that world.

[ttepasse]

> No one gets to be a Telegraph columnist without doing a ton of work

I can't speak for the 90s but watching the Daily Telegraph in the last years my impression is that the chief qualifications of their journalists and especially their columnists seems to be how much they mirror the weird political stances of the Barclay brothers, the owners of the DT.

[bloogsy]

No, but some people get to be Telegraph columnists and into positions of power without having to do as much work and face as much scrutiny as others because of their skin colour, their familial wealth and connections, and because they went an elite school.

[hdfbdtbcdg]

I strongly disagree that skin colour has anything to do with it.

In reality the elite school doesn't even help.

It all comes down to wealth and connections.

[jimmithy]

Those schools help with the connections

[hdfbdtbcdg]

They help less than you'd think. In reality the parents of the boys and girls on the inside of the existing networks steer them into in group friendships.

(They help more than nothing but less than you'd hope as a parent - even money can't buy your children entry to the upper classes.)

[DrScientist]

I think that depends on how you define work/graft.

He has great energy and clearly finds writing and speaking easy, especially if he not constrained by effort required to check the facts ( opinion based columns ).

I suspect he is also very competitive under the bonhomie.

> ancient greek

He didn't get a first at Oxford, while Cameron did - he recently called Cameron a 'girly swot'. Suggests he didn't work as hard as he could have and still hasn't quite got over it.

I suspect for the stuff he doesn't want to do, or doesn't find comes naturally, the real hard graft, he isn't so great.

He has often had multiple jobs, as well as multiple private lives - so great energy, but that's not the same as being able to really graft.

So I'd agree he is not lazy, by any means.

However, would you trust him with a really important task, a task that needed someones undivided attention to succeed?

Like Brexit or being Primer Minister? - I'm not sure he will do the job to his best ability - never quite the focus to be first class.

[rjsw]

A Telegraph deputy editor was on the BBC news channel a few days ago reviewing the newspaper headlines, she could barely string sentences together but her accent suggested that she had been to a very good school.