When Ed Balls was in the shadow cabinet, pressing the flesh and raising funds for local parties, he liked to help out with the raffle. Why? Because selling tickets gave him the perfect excuse to work the room – and to escape from any awkward conversations.
Not all politicians take so naturally to the task of fundraising. Boris Johnson – for some time the most coveted draw for Conservative MPs looking to excite their local parties – likes to have a plan, and his after-dinner speeches generally follow a tightly written, well-memorised script. During the run-up to the EU referendum, Johnson was finishing a speech when he delivered his usual instruction to forget the party’s divisions and to work hard “to stop a Labour government”. The line, which usually caused solemn silence before the 2015 election, instead triggered an eruption of impromptu and unwelcome laughter in the era of Jeremy Corbyn.
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