Thank you very much. You are perfectly right, I had prepared two speeches. As some of you may know, I do like to have two versions for these occasions. Thank you very much, George, thank you very much Fraser. What an extraordinary few months it has certainly been and there have been times where I
This article was published in The Spectator on 2 February 2002 by Boris Johnson, the new Foreign Secretary and former editor of the magazine. You would need a heart of stone not to have been moved by the little Aids-ridden choristers. We sat under a mango tree, before a dancing-space of packed red earth, and what
Andrea Leadsom offers the zap, the drive, and the determination essential for the next leader of this country. She has long championed the needs of the most vulnerable in our society. She has a better understanding of finance than almost anyone else in Parliament. She has considerable experience of government. She is level-headed, kind, trustworthy, approachable
You remember the climax of Jaws — the primeval moment when Quint the crazed Ahab-like fisherman goes mano a mano with the monster of the deep? He comes to the rear of the listing boat and straps on a leather belt with a phallic protrusion: a metal receptacle into which he shoves the haft of
I want to begin this morning by paying tribute to David Cameron who has spoken earlier from Downing Street. I know I speak for Michael in saying how sad I am that he has decided to step down but obviously I respect that decision. I have known David Cameron for a very long time and
There was a young fellow from Ankara Who was a terrific wankera Till he sowed his wild oats With the help of a goat But he didn’t even stop to thankera. *Extempore limerick in conversation with Nicholas Farrell and Urs Gehriger for the Swiss newspaper Die Weltwoche. On the grounds of its spontaneity, it
This is not about whether you love Europe or not. Actually, I love Brussels, I used to live in Brussels – fantastic city, wonderful place – and I love European culture and civilisation. I consider it to be the greatest civilisation this planet has ever produced, and we are all products or most of us
Frankly I don’t know why the British media made such a big fat fuss last week when I accidentally flattened a ten-year-old Japanese rugby player called Toki. He got to his feet. He smiled. Everyone applauded. That’s rugby, isn’t it? You get knocked down, you get up again. And yet I have to admit that
I had a misspent youth. During the period when most normal adolescents were playing Grand Theft Auto or discovering ten interesting facts about Pamela Anderson, I am afraid that I would take the tube by myself — aged about 13 — and visit the British Museum. I would walk through the cat-headed Egyptians and the
I really can’t remember exactly how I came to appoint Simon Hoggart the wine correspondent of this magazine, but I have a feeling that it must have been in the aftermath of one of those long lunches at which it was then — and I hope and believe still is — the privilege of the
You remember the climax of Jaws — the primeval moment when Quint the crazed Ahab-like fisherman goes mano a mano with the monster of the deep? He comes to the rear of the listing boat and straps on a leather belt with a phallic protrusion: a metal receptacle into which he shoves the haft of his puny fishing rod.
Omigosh I don’t know why I allowed myself to go in for this one. It is Tuesday afternoon, I am trying to complete a Spectator Olympic diary, and it will be a triumph of speed and nerve. I have three speeches to write, half an hour till deadline, and I can see the great Fraser
It is an eternal and reassuring fact of human nature that when an editor announces that he is stepping down from a great publication, there is not the slightest interest in what he plans to do with his life, or even who he was. I have received many phone calls from friends and colleagues since announcing
It has for many years been a commonplace of political analysis that journalists have grown in stature as we politicians have shrunk. But the full reality of our reduced condition was rammed home to me, yet again, on the morning after the general election. On the invitation of the BBC I went on telly to
Everywhere I go in Manhattan I meet British tourists. ‘Oi, Boris,’ they shout across the street, ‘who let you out, then?’ How come it is the Brits, with their puny devalued pounds, who are swarming through the streets of New York, when the New Yorkers have stopped coming to London? Tourism from North America to
We only had a few seconds left to get ready. There were 91,000 people in the stadium and (allegedly) about 1.5 billion watching apathetically at home. I advanced to the little plastic sign on the red carpet saying ‘Mayor of London’, and as we waited to be called to the centre of the arena I
You may have seen the disgraceful suggestion by Gordon Brown in Prime Minister’s Question Time that I want to cut the Metropolitan Police budget when the reverse is the case. It is high time we stopped putting up with his falsehoods, and exposed them for what they are. So I would like you to help
Even if the story is exaggerated, the underlying psychology is convincing. It is reliably reported that last month a woman in her thirties was doing her daily laps of the pool in Leatherhead, Surrey, when she became aware of an obstacle. A section of the swimming-pool had been roped off to allow 15 wounded soldiers
It is a measure of James Michie’s extreme modesty that most of the younger people who bumped into him in the offices of The Spectator probably hadn’t the foggiest idea who he really was. They might see him reading in the afternoon, sitting with a glass of wine and a half-smile, in the room that
“The present Mayor of London”: that is how Our Candidate refers, with terse menace, to Ken Livingstone, in today’s Telegraph. If I were Ken, those five words would give me pause. As charming as The Candidate certainly is, never doubt he has the steel to win.