Boris Johnson

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 have had to admit that, like the loyal and faithful hound, Kim, to whom George has already alluded, like him, like the faithful alsatian belonging to Michael Heseltine, there have been moments since June 23rd where I have genuinely feared. In those very grim days after June 23rd, I genuinely feared that I might be strangled by a crazed, pop-eyed Europhile 'Remainer'.

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 a preposterous delegation we were. There was Mr Rod Liddle, the big white chief of the Today programme, not looking especially kempt. There was Vicky Scott of Unicef, and there was your correspondent, addressed repeatedly by the pleasing title of 'Mr Honourable Johnson'. And as we sat in our armchairs, as though at some durbar, the choir formed in a semi-circle before us: dozens of tiny children in lacy, embroidered dresses.

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 and the possessor of a good sense of humour. She has specialised in the EU question and successfully campaigned for Leave and will be, therefore, well-placed to help forge a great post-Brexit future for Britain and Europe. Above all, she possesses the qualities needed to bring together Leavers and Remainers in the weeks and months ahead. I will be voting for Andrea Leadsom tomorrow.

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 I believe he has been one of the most extraordinary politicians of our age. A brave and principled man who has given superb leadership of party and his country for many years. Reforming our public services, delivering one nation Conservative government, making this country the most dynamic economy in Europe and with his own brand of compassionate Conservatism that rightly earned his party the first majority government for decades.

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 here are products of that civilisation and it is a fantastic thing but there should be no confusion between the wonders of Europe and holidays in Europe and fantastic food and friendships and whatever else you get from Europe - with a political project that has basically been going on now for decades which Britain has been a member of since 1975 and I now think is in real danger of getting out of proper democratic control.

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 staff to get sozzled at the expense of the wonderful and benevolent proprietors. It might have been a parliamentary awards judging lunch. Perhaps it was just a lunch. At any rate Simon was there, and he started doing impressions of some of his favourite House of Commons characters. I am pretty sure Sir Peter Tapsell cropped up.

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. And you look at this terrifying mismatch between a man’s tackle and the might of nature, and you think, ‘How the hell is that going to work?’ Such were my feelings, amigos, on a blustery day in the Indian ocean when I realised I had a whopper on the line. ‘That is a big fish,’ said Paolo the skipper, and his eyes widened as my reel spun and the taut yellow filament shot out behind us.

 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 last Friday that this would be my last edition, and they only want to know one thing. ‘Who is taking over?’ I wish I knew myself. But since the white smoke has yet to go up, I thought I had better write a general welcome to whoever you are out there. I propose to open the door of 56 Doughty Street and show you — not so much how it’s done — but where it’s done.

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 comment on the prospects of an exciting new Lib-Con coalition. I was falteringly trying to give my opinion when my interviewer, Jeremy Paxman, broke in. ‘Haven’t you got a city to run?’ he said with his trademark testiness. ‘Then why don’t you go off and run it!

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 me, and Coffee House, form an online intifada against the little lies we are fed every day by this Prime Minister and his kindred spirit Ken Livingstone - whom I very much hope the Londoners amongst you will help me dislodge in May. The aim is to collate examples of all the porkies these two peddle. You can help, by adding below this post, in the comments, any example where either have sought to mislead.