THE CHILDHOOD OF A LEADER

I HAD A FEELING I COULDN’T IMMEDIATELY PLACE. I WANTED TO GO OUT BUT WASN’T ALLOWED. Shelves were emptying at the nearest supermarket and, instead of fresh fruit and vegetables, I was eating British comfort food – sausages and mash, pie and beans. My freedom to make decisions like an adult was limited. I wondered when I’d see my mum again.

March 2020, first week of the first lockdown: I was 53 years old and felt like I was back at boarding school. Which wouldn’t have mattered but for the fact that, at a time of national crisis, my generation of boarding-school boys found themselves in charge.

My first night at Pinewood school was two days after my eighth birthday in January 1975. A term earlier David Cameron had left his family home for Heatherdown preparatory school in Berkshire, while also in 1975, at the age of 11, Alexander Johnson was sent to board at Ashdown House in East Sussex. This means I know how two of the past three British prime ministers were treated as children and the kind of men their schools wanted to make of them. I know neither of these men personally but I do know that they spent the formative years of their childhood in boarding schools being looked after by adults who didn’t love them, because I did too. And if the character of our leaders matters then I’m in possession of important information.

At the age of 13, after prep school, Cameron and Johnson progressed to Eton. I went on to Radley College near Oxford. The exact school picked out by the parents didn’t really matter, because the experience was designed to produce a shared mindset. They were paying for a similar upbringing with a similar intended result: to establish our credentials for the top jobs in the country. We were being trained