Boris Johnson made a £1,000 bet on the 2010 general election result – but has been accused of failing to stump up the cash after he lost.
Respected former Telegraph editor Sir Max Hastings last night told how he sent the ex-PM an undated cheque after they made the wager - with the latter backing a Tory majority. But Mr Johnson cashed it before the poll had even happened and Sir Max says the politician did not pay his loss when David Cameron's Conservatives fell short of outright victory.
Sir Max told the Mirror: “I was the one who made a fool of myself in this episode, by entrusting Boris Johnson with a chance to secure £1,000 of my money, and also expecting him to pay if he lost the bet, which everybody who knew him warned me that he would not.”
As the election betting scandal unfolds, we have unearthed comments in which Mr Johnson admitted staking the huge sum on a Tory majority. Westminster has been gripped by claims of betting on the date of this year’s General Election.
Boris Johnson made a wager with former Telegraph editor Sir Max Hastings (Jeff Gilbert/REX/Shutterstock)A Scotland Yard investigation is underway, with seven officers identified as having gambled on the timing over the poll. And the Tories have withdrawn support for two candidates over alleged betting on the election date.
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It also emerged this week senior Tory Philip Davies reportedly bet £8,000 on losing his own seat. Meanwhile, Labour suspended a candidate who bet on himself to fail in his election bid.
Writing for the Daily Telegraph in April 2010, Mr Johnson, who was London Mayor at the time of the article, revealed he’d made the bet a “couple of years ago” over dinner with Sir Max. He wrote of his former editor: “... he was being so gloomy about Conservative prospects that I scented a financial opportunity.
“Tell you what, I said, let's have a bet. A thousand pounds says the Tories will win the next election. How about that? "Done!" said my old mentor, with the wolfish gleam of one taking candy from a baby. And from that moment on, of course, the Tories started to soar in the polls. Gordon Brown lurched from one disaster to the next…
“At last the matter came to seem so settled that Max decided to run up the white flag. When David Cameron started to record poll leads of 20 per cent, a cheque arrived in the post for a thousand pounds. I promptly cashed it, and (to my shame) forgot to thank Max for being both so sporting and so realistic.”
The Conservatives won the most seats at 2010’s election but failed to get a majority – forming a Coalition government with the Liberal Democrats. Johnson was MP for Henley from June 2001 until June 2008. He was elected Mayor of London in May 2008.
In 2013 the Evening Standard : “Johnson bet Sir Max Hastings £1,000 the Tories would win a majority at the 2010 election. Sir Max asked for his money after the election. After months of stalling Boris sent a letter saying “cheque enclosed”. It wasn’t.”
Sir Max told us: “The Evening Standard 2013 story was broadly correct, but there was nothing improper about Johnson making the bet… Johnson’s account of the bet was, I’m afraid, wildly inaccurate, but that’s of a piece with the man... I got my £1,000 back from Johnson after threatening him with Private Eye, but he never paid his loss for having predicted an absolute Tory majority which didn’t happen.”
He added: “I forget the exact date when the bet was made, but it was shortly before the 2005 General Election. I said that not only did I think the Tories would fail to win an absolute majority in that contest, but I did not believe they would secure one at the following contest either. Johnson disagreed and proposed a bet, which I accepted.
“I sent him an undated cheque for my stake against an absolute majority, and expected him to do the same, which he did not. I also assumed that he would simply hold the cheque until the next election, as of course I intended to do with his cheque, had I received it. I was very cross when I discovered that he had immediately cashed the cheque, and began a long struggle to get the money back, which did include an episode when he sent me a note saying ‘here’s the cheque’, but enclosing nothing.
“When the 2010 election ended without a Tory absolute majority, I asked him to pay his loss, which he declined to do. He eventually returned my own money only when I warned him that I would otherwise tell the story to Private Eye.”
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There is no suggestion of criminal wrongdoing by Mr Johnson. A spokesman for him said: “Boris Johnson was so desperate to keep this bet secret that he wrote about it 14 years ago in the pages of the Daily Telegraph.”
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