Boris Johnson's Blog, page 44

London mayor Dick Whittington is a tough act to follow, discovers Boris Johnson

You think you know the story of Dick Whittington? Think again. That pantomime you see at Christmas at the Horsham Salvation Army Hall, starring TV's Jason Donovan, with Ann Widdecombe as his furry feline friend, is in one sense an egregious piece o...

Boris Johnson's 'Life of London': exclusive extract

Some time in my late teens I found myself in a student house when someone put on Start Me Up by the Rolling Stones. I am fully aware of what sophisticated people are supposed to think about those first three siren-jangling chords. But the noise that ...

A new literary genius could be hard at work on a London bus

He can't do it. No one has taught him to write longhand! He has spent so long tap-tap-tapping on electronic gizmos of one kind or another that he has completely missed out on the skill of forming legible characters with his own hand. In the final se...

Without a new airport, British businesses will be left behind

Good for Philip Hammond. Once again the Transport Secretary has shown robust common sense. First he pointed out that everyone already travels at 80mph on a motorway, and that it is therefore pretty silly to maintain that it is a criminal offence to g...

Conservative Party Conference 2011: Boris Johnson defies David Cameron to call for referendum on Europe

The London mayor said it was "not a bad idea" to give the British people a direct say on Europe. He told a fringe meeting at the Conservative conference that voters deserved a chance to express their views on the issue.


He said: "The British ...

Ed Miliband is one export that would scupper our rivals

These countries are seeing huge increases in living standards, female emancipation, literacy and per capita GDP. Let Ed explain to them how they have been getting it wrong, and that it is time for them to acquire some western labour-market rigidities....

BC or BCE? The BBC's edict on how we date events is AD (absolute drivel)

We are asked to call the years-before-the-event-we-cannot-mention BCE, or "Before Common Era", and the years-after-the-event-we-cannot-mention "Common Era", or CE. You should not underestimate the influence of this verdict. What the BBC decides, all k...

Britain should bang up the trouble-makers, but let's turn them round, too

We need a dual track policy, which recognises the role of prison in reducing crime – as Michael Howard and David Blunkett showed – but which also places a greater emphasis (as Ken Clarke is doing) on cutting the rate of re-offending through education of all kinds. We are working with the Justice Department to [...]

Britain should bang up the trouble-makers, but let's turn them round, too

We need a dual track policy, which recognises the role of prison in reducing crime – as Michael Howard and David Blunkett showed – but which also places a greater emphasis (as Ken Clarke is doing) on cutting the rate of re-offending through educat...

David Walliams's Thames swim: it will take a super-sewer to get London out of this mess

The sewers of London are already so full, and so much rainfall now sluices into them off the concrete and tarmac rather than sinking into the turf, that these Bazalgette interceptors are already exploding into the Thames about 50 times a year, and the discharge rate is increasing the whole time. When Joseph Bazalgette built [...]