Alexander Boris de pfeffel Johnson -THE REAL SLIM SHADY.

Sexism, vandalism and bullying: inside the Boris Johnson-era Bullingdon Club

It is notorious for champagne-swilling, restaurant-trashing, “pleb”-taunting elitism. Now new light has been shed on the outrageous antics of the Bullingdon Club – the Oxford University group that may be about to produce its second British prime minister – by someone intimately connected to it during Boris Johnson’s membership.

A woman who acted as a scout for potential members of the Bullingdon Club in the mid-1980s has said that female prostitutes performed sex acts at its lavish dinners, women were routinely belittled, and that intimidation and vandalism were its hallmarks.

The woman, who has asked not to be named, is now an academic and regards her involvement with the male-only Bullingdon Club more than 30 years ago with extreme regret and embarrassment.

In her first week at Oxford in 1983, she was approached by a member of the club to identify potential recruits – a role she performed throughout her time as an undergraduate. She also had an 18-month relationship with a man who became a president of the club. In her final year at Oxford, she shared a house with Bullingdon members.

Her involvement with the club coincided with Boris Johnson’s membership and overlapped with David Cameron’s. She was not a close friend of Johnson but they had a number of good friends in common, she said. She has maintained contact with several former Bullingdon members over the past 30-plus years.

“I helped recruit for the Bullingdon, and advised [the president] on its activities,” she told the Observer. “I know very well what the patterns of behaviour were. When [her ex-boyfriend] was president, they had prostitutes at their dinners. They performed sex acts, sometimes at the shared dining table, and sometimes elsewhere on the premises.”

In 2016, Ralph Perry-Robinson, a Bullingdon member in the mid-1980s, confirmed that prostitutes attended club events. “We always hire whores… prostitutes were paid extra by members who wanted to use them,” he told the Daily Beast. But, Boris was one of the club’s biggest beasts. He was up for anything. They treated certain people with absolute disdain.

Whilst Alexander Boris de pfeffel Johnson was a member of the Bullingdon Boys Club from 1987 Vandalism and destruction are at the very core of the Buller philosophy. Stories of the Cameron-Johnson-Osborne era include burning £50 notes in front of homeless people, dressing up in Nazi uniforms, and destroying priceless collections of art, history, and public and private property.

In the latter tradition, “trashing” was the term jovially selected by members to describe drunkenly destroying private rooms, restaurants, venues, galleries, and really any other space they could get their hands on.

In 2013, Johnson – who reputedly still greets former members with a cry of “Buller, Buller, Buller” – described it as “a truly shameful vignette of almost superhuman undergraduate arrogance, toffishness and twittishness”. He added: “But at the time you felt it was wonderful to be going round swanking it up.”

A photograph of club members in their Bullingdon tailcoats taken in 1987 has been repeatedly republished since Cameron became Tory leader. The picture made him “cringe”, he said. “We all did stupid things when we are young and we should learn the lessons.”

Last October, Bullingdon Club members were banned from holding positions in the Oxford University Conservative Association. The association’s president, Ben Etty, said the club’s “values and activities had no place in the modern Conservative party”.

In recent years, membership has reportedly dwindled to a handful as today’s undergraduates shun an organisation with a toxic reputation.