Boris Johnson's Blog, page 49

Snooty Europhiles should eat dirt

The continent is a collection of different languages and labour-market traditions and individual approaches to deficits and inflation. … Angela Merkel is plainly facing significant unrest from a growing constituency who see no reason to pay ever more in their taxes to finance … the periphery of Europe.
I think we deserve an apology.  [...]

FIFA is beyond our control

The trick of happiness is to know how to master your rage and turn it into something useful. I don't know if there is some eastern sage who first said that, but it is the kind of thing that could easily be expanded into one of those airport-bookstall business management best sellers. You know the [...]

Fifa is beyond our control

The trick of happiness is to know how to master your rage and turn it into something useful. I don't know if there is some eastern sage who first said that, but it is the kind of thing that could easily be expanded into one of those airport-bookstall business management best sellers. You know the [...]

Our bid for World Cup Football 2018

2018 World Cup: England is best placed to spread the gospel of football
The key proposition of England 2018 is that we will create a festival of football
Boris Johnson hopes that tonight's Panorama about Fifa will not prejudice our World Cup bid.

I was watching my old chum Howard Flight on television as he tried to dodge [...]

ECO SHOP EVENING WITH LIVIA FIRTH

A wonderful evening was had last week admiring jewellery, clothes and ornaments designed by:  Lily Cole, Laura Bailey, Alexa Chung among many others.  See the blog about it here

Does Waterboarding Work?

We might become reluctant supporters of "extreme interrogation techniques" if we could really persuade ourselves that half an hour of waterboarding could really save a hundred lives — or indeed a single life. In reality, no such calculus is possible
It is not yet clear whether George W Bush is planning to cross the Atlantic to [...]

The BBC Strike

I do not regularly listen to the Today programme
 I never watch Newsnight
the whole lot of them could go on strike between now and Christmas, and I wouldn't consider myself in any way starved of information
I have a terrible confession to make. I have to own up to a cultural shortcoming that will scandalise many high-minded [...]

Keep evenings lighter

    it is all the more baffling that we do not make the obvious move and reverse yesterday's ludicrous clock-change so as to increase the quantity of joyous sunlight that is available to us all
lighter evenings would save lives, save CO2, save money, generate jobs and growth
Just when you think the world can't get any [...]

The BBC Trust

"The extent to which the audience feels its trust betrayed … bodes ill for the BBC.  In the long term the loser will be public-service broad­casting itself ;  the winners the revengists of 'old' New Labour."

Dr Robert Frew reflects on the role of the BBC Trust
BBC Trust Chairman Sir Michael Lyons has recently revealed he will [...]

UK's Nuclear Power

 … by aiding the Indians, as we must, we are effectively supporting them to achieve a nuclear independence that we cannot ourselves afford

We do not yet know whether Commander Andy Coles will face a court martial for his heroic exploits aboard HMS Astute, but some disciplinary procedure seems inevitable. The poor fellow will be frogmarched [...]