Boris Johnson Quotes

Boris Johnson Quotes

• I have founded the Pie Liberation Front. Our campaign to smuggle traditional British food to schoolchildren begins next week. Will you be our honorary patron? BEN MULLINS, by e-mail

o Alas, no. I am an out-and-out paternalist on school meals. As a BBC survey showed, there has been a downturn in the new healthy Jamie-inspired school dinners, precisely because it is still possible to go for the packed lunch.

• The people of Liverpool are a crowd of mawkish whingers. Why did you apologise? JIM BERNARD, Manchester

  o In the course of my inglorious pilgrimage of penitence I tried to distinguish between The Spectator's attack on a general culture of sentimentality and grievance - which I stood by - and some offensive errors of fact about Hillsborough, for which I grovelled.

• How can somebody as fat as you get so many good-looking women to find you attractive? ARDAL CONYNGHAM, Belfast

o This strikes me as a trap question.

• Have you ever taken illegal drugs? If not why not? LOIS BEENE, Cardiff

o I have and I want you to know that I inhaled. Then I sneezed.

• Do you ever harbour lustful thoughts about the honourable women members sitting opposite you on the House of Commons benches? If yes, which ones? STEVE CANT, Hastings

o They are all perfectly lovely in their own ways. I am rather shocked that you should ask.

• You confessed to having had a crush on Polly Toynbee. What is it about Polly that seems to drive Tory boys wild? TOM SCARSDALE, by e-mail

o Oh lord. It's just she's so bossy and posh. Is that the right answer?

• Have the Ancient Romans anything to teach the Tories about power? GABRIELLA KRUSE, Bristol

o Yeah - that it's easily lost to the Vandals.

• Who is your historical pin-up, and why? AMELIA LANCASTER, Derby

o Pericles. Look at his Funeral Speech. Democracy. Freedom. Champion stuff.

From Independent 02/01/07

Boris Johnson - Decent Chap

• Yes, cannabis is dangerous, but no more than other perfectly legal drugs. It's time for a rethink, and the Tory party - the funkiest, most jiving party on Earth - is where it's happening.

  o "No one obeys the speed limit except a motorised rickshaw", Daily Telegraph, 12 July 2001, p. 27.

• I don't see why people are so snooty about Channel 5. It has some respectable documentaries about the Second World War. It also devotes considerable airtime to investigations into lap dancing, and other related and vital subjects.

  o "What has the BBC come to? Toilets, that's what", Daily Telegraph, 14 March 2002, p. 29.

• We are confident in our story and will be fighting this all the way. I am very sorry that Alastair Campbell has taken this decision but I can see that he got his tits in the wringer.

  o Catherine Macleod, "Angry Blair takes on press", The Herald (Glasgow), 24 April 2002, p. 1. o On Campbell's negative reply to the Spectator's report that the Government had influence the Queen Mother's funeral arrangements.

• Nor do I propose to defend the right to talk on a mobile while driving a car, though I don't believe that is necessarily any more dangerous than the many other risky things that people do with their free hands while driving - nose-picking, reading the paper, studying the A-Z, beating the children, and so on.

  o "To the lady who berated me, I say: on your bike", Daily Telegraph, 1 August 2002, p. 21.

• I forgot that to rely on a train, in Blair's Britain, is to engage in a crapshoot with the devil.

  o "A horse is a safer bet than the trains", Daily Telegraph, 3 July 2003, p. 22.

• I have as much chance of becoming Prime Minister as of being decapitated by a frisbee or of finding Elvis.

  o Ephraim Hardcastle, Daily Mail, 22 July 2003, p. 13. o Asked by pupils of Gillott's School in his constituency whether he would like the job of Prime Minister.

• The dreadful truth is that when people come to see their MP, they have run out of better ideas.

  o "What's wrong with 40 Liverpool Road?", Daily Telegraph, 18 September 2003, p. 24.

• The Lib Dems are not just empty. They are a void within a vacuum surrounded by a vast inanition.

  o "The least said about Lib Dems, the better", Daily Telegraph, 25 September 2003, p. 24.

• Any seat would be mad not to take him. He's a terrific chap.

  o "Keeping it in the family", Daily Telegraph, 23 January 2004, p. 29. o On his father, Stanley Johnson's plans to become an MP.

• It is just flipping unbelievable. He is a mixture of Harry Houdini and a greased piglet. He is barely human in his elusiveness. Nailing Blair is like trying to pin jelly to a wall.

  o "The BBC was doing its job - bring back Gilligan", Daily Telegraph, 29 January 2004, p. 21. o Reaction to the Hutton Report.

• As snow-jobs go, this beats the Himalayas.

  o "The BBC was doing its job - bring back Gilligan", Daily Telegraph, 29 January 2004, p. 21. o Reaction to the Hutton Report.

• Some readers will no doubt say that a devil is inside me; and though my faith is a bit like Magic FM in the Chilterns, in that the signal comes and goes, I can only hope that isn't so.

  o "What's so funny about the Passion?", Daily Telegraph, 4 March 2004, p. 24.

• If Amsterdam or Leningrad vie for the title of Venice of the North, then Venice - what compliment is high enough? Venice, with all her civilisation and ancient beauty, Venice with her addiction to curious aquatic means of transport, yes, my friends, Venice is the Henley of the South.

  o "Paying through the Doge for Europe", Daily Telegraph, 11 March 2004, p. 22.

• He's lost the plot, people tell me. He's drifting rudderless in the wide Sargasso Sea of New Labour's ideological vacuum.

  o "Blair dead in the water? No such luck", Daily Telegraph, 29 April 2004, p. 24. o On Tony Blair.

• Look the point is ... er, what is the point? It is a tough job but somebody has got to do it.

  o Toby Helm, "Boris Johnson named shadow arts minister", Daily Telegraph, 7 May 2004, p. 12. o On being appointed Shadow Arts Minister.

• It was a stellar performance. I may as well give up now and make way for an older man.

  o Hickey, The Express, 12 May 2004. o On his father Stanley's appearance on Have I Got News For You.

• There is absolutely no one, apart from yourself, who can prevent you, in the middle of the night, from sneaking down to tidy up the edges of that hunk of cheese at the back of the fridge.

  o "Face it: it's all your own fat fault", Daily Telegraph, 27 May 2004, p. 24. o On the dangers of obesity.

• I think I was once given cocaine but I sneezed so it didn't go up my nose. In fact, it may have been icing sugar.

o "Londoner's Diary", Evening Standard, 17 October 2005, p. 15.

• Howard is a dynamic performer on many levels. There you are. He sent me to Liverpool. Marvellous place. Howard was the most effective Home Secretary since Peel. Hang on, was Peel Home Secretary?

  • I can't remember what my line on drugs is. What's my line on drugs?

    o "The Genelection Game", Sunday Mirror, 24 April 2005, p. 19. o During the campaign trail of the 2005 general election.

Boris Johnson Quotes from Wikipedia

Boris Johnson the Politician

I was actually inspired to post about Boris Johnson because of this very acurate satire on inflated grade standards in UK schools. everything he says is absolutely true. I say Boris for PM.

Are education standards slipping in Britain? RICHARD MORRIS, Luton

"Slipping! How could you even suggest it? Every year, comrades, our children are getting better and better at passing exams! Every year we produce more A*-C grade tractors from the Red Star plant! This year an amazing 43.5 per cent of candidates got an A at maths A-level, and guess what the proportion was 40 years ago, when far fewer people took maths A-level? It was only 7 per cent! Now you do the maths. Oh, all right, I'll do it for you. That is a staggering 620 per cent improvement by our young geniuses. Let me enter the usual political guff about how hard everyone has worked, and let me congratulate them on their grades. But if too many CVs read like a man falling off a building then the A is useless as a tool of differentiation, and that is why some universities are calling for a pre-U exam to replace A-levels, and that is why there is increasing interest in the IB. We have all connived in the fiction that our kids are getting brighter, because that conceals the growing gulf in attainment between much of the maintained sector and the grammar schools/ independent schools. The result is that the market has, inevitably, asserted itself, and in a way that is socially regressive. Which schools, after all, are going to have the resources to prepare their pupils for these new specialised university entrance exams?"

From: Independent