Boris Johnson has described himself as a bit on the spectrum – and told how his ambition in life has been driven by a desire to outdo his sister Rachel.
The former PM said it was a “bad thing” that he could not always appreciate how people are feeling, but added that most men were the same.
When asked if he saw himself as a “feeling” person, said: “I’d love to think so. Sometimes. I think sometimes I can be a bit spectrumy probably.
“Like all men, I can sort of zone out and fail to appreciate what people are really feeling, and that’s a bad thing.
“Generally speaking, I would say I was as good as the next man at spotting what people are feeling.”
Meanwhile, Johnson attributed the lifelong drive that led to Number 10 down to a childhood competitive rivalry with his sister.
When asked on the Rosebud podcast what led to his determination academically, and then to a career in journalism, before being elected an MP, London Mayor and PM, Johnson replied: “It was Rachel.”
Boris said: “The most traumatic event in my childhood, the thing that really determined the course of my life, was the birth of my sister Rachel.
“I feel I remember the shock of her coming back to the house, and seeing this new competitor in my mother’s arms.
“I think that’s a recovered memory. My mother gives a harrowing description of my shock knowing that I’d been displaced in the family – because I was the king, everybody did everything I wanted and my life ever after was an attempt to rediscover that prelapsarian bliss before the arrival of Rachel, and competition with Rachel really.”
Although he said “I don’t think I can remember it truly”, he said it was later to result in “the shock and the impulse to compete, and if possible, to keep one’s nose ahead of Rachel”.
Asked what aspects of his personality or upbringing shaped his career, he replied: “It was Rachel. I think we’re all the product of our family circumstances and our family dynamics.
“We follow patterns of behaviour that we really learned at a very early age and we replicate them.
“And I genuinely think that my need, primal need, to not lose the share of my parental esteem that I’d been used to in this prelapsarian bliss before Rachel’s arrival was the essential spur to continue to make an effort, to pull my finger out, get up early to swot.
“Otherwise I find it inexplicable. Yes, I have some natural abilities, but there’s also a lot of energy. Why this colossal energy? What’s driving it psychologically? I think it’s a healthy thing. That’s basically it.
“Obviously the infantile context for all of us is parental esteem, time, whatever – praise.”
But Johnson still described the atmosphere in the family home with Rachel – who he still called his “best friend” – and then first brother Leo, who came two years after her, as happy – but also violent.
Boris said: “It was very competitive, it was very jolly, it was quite violent. There was lots of bashing each other up. I think my brother Leo and I used to fight almost from dawn to dusk some weeks – it was fantastic.
“Leo’s very strong. He was captain of the rugby team. He and I used to thwack each other the whole time. We would go to sleep still exhausted from hitting each other and we would wake up to find the battles still not over and we would go on.”
