Some advice for Boris from a proud father

Stanley Johnson says that his son is no buffoon, that his ability to make people laugh doesn’t mean he’s a lightweight, and that he should not get bogged down in ‘consultation’

Boris was born in New York on 19 June 1964. I missed the birth since I had slipped outside for a moment to buy a pizza. When I first saw him he was bundled up in the hospital nursery with only the soles of his feet showing. These were completely black. This puzzled me. Had his mother, I wondered, somehow managed to give birth to the wrong baby?

I later discovered that in New York, for reasons of security, newborn babies’ feet are dipped in black ink and an imprint taken for the record. Apparently there is no point in fingerprinting an infant as the skin in their tiny hands is too soft.

It didn’t occur to me at that moment, just over 43 years ago, that I might be looking at the insteps of a future mayor of London.