Rachel Johnson: Not just Boris's sister (llustration by Michael Daley)
Boris Johnson’s sister Rachel. Such is the moniker with which the second-eldest Johnson sibling is frequently saddled. With one brother a government minister, one a partner at PwC, and one whose reputation as London mayor and Conservative MP has seen him transcend his surname to become simply Boris, Rachel Johnson, who turns 50 this month, is perennially accused of riding on her family coat-tails. A party girl by nature, there is a certain public perception of the sole Johnson sister as a posh, over-privileged social butterfly with a tennis racket welded to one hand, a champagne flute to the other.
In fact, Rachel Johnson is as clever, ambitious and shrewd as her famous siblings — if not more so. After all, keeping up with the Joneses is a doddle compared to keeping up with the Johnsons.
Rachel might always be at parties — but she is invited because she is a dream guest. It is impossible to feel unwelcome in her presence: a childhood spent globe-trotting with her ebullient father, the former MEP Stanley Johnson, means she has the ability to talk to anyone, about anything. As a result, she possesses a veritable — and tantalising — treasure trove of gossip. Laughter pours from whichever corner of the room she inhabits. This naturally makes her an unrepentant nightmare for her elder brother’s PR team. Witness the tweet she sent out on election night in 2010, when a Tory victory seemed impossible — “It’s all gone tits up. Call for Boris” — or her gleefully public revelation of young Boris’s desire to be “world king”. But an ear-bashing from a public relations officer could never quell Rachel’s desire to have what she calls “bags of fun”. She will not be defined by her brothers. This is not “Boris’s sister Rachel” but “Rachel, who happens to have a brother named Boris.”
The mayor himself is eager to corroborate this fact. Had Rachel not been born, he insists, “he wouldn’t be Boris”: her precocious drive to surpass her elder sibling in matters both mental and physical drove his own ambition.
For Rachel Johnson is quite ferociously intelligent. Those who criticise her privileged upbringing seize upon an education at fee-paying St Paul’s Girls School in Hammersmith, and a classics degree from New College, Oxford. What these detractors conveniently forget are the intensely competitive examinations that must be sat for entrance into both institutions.
As sole sister to three brothers, it is little wonder that she became the first-ever woman to secure a graduate traineeship at the Financial Times. From there she moved to the BBC, before a freelance career that has seen her write for almost every national broadsheet, as well as become contributing editor at the Spectator. Her column for the Mail on Sunday takes an irreverent view of the week’s news, frequently playing devil’s advocate on contentious female issues in order to provoke debate.
