Full text: Boris Johnson’s conference speech

I was at the UN general assembly in NY the other day and talking to the foreign minister of another country. I won’t say which one, since I must preserve my reputation for diplomacy, but let’s just say they have an economy about the size of Australia (though getting smaller, alas). Plenty of snow, nuclear missiles, balalaikas, oligarchs, leader who strips to the waist you get the picture.

After a few tense exchanges my counterpart gave a theatrical sigh and said that any difficulties we had in our relationship were all Britain’s fault: “It was you guys who imposed democracy on us in 1990”. I was a bit startled by this, and I decided I couldn’t let it go unchallenged, and I said: “hang on, Sergei,” I said; “aren’t you in favour of democracy?” And then I asked for a show of hands in the room… “All those in favour of democracy please show”, I said
and you would have thought that this was a relatively uncontroversial thing, a bit like asking Maria von Trapp whether she was in favour of raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens and I am proud to say that the entire UK side of the room raised their hands as one to show that democracy was indeed one of our favourite things but much to my amazement our opposite numbers just kept their hands on the table and gave us what we diplomats call the hairy eyeball and of course they felt I was winding them up; and there is a sense in which my question was semi-satirical.