Boris Johnson quotes

" Unlike the current occupant of the White House, he has no difficulty in orally extemporising a series of grammatical English sentences, each containing a main verb. " # Speakers and Speaking # Language # Life and Living

" Chinese cultural influence is virtually nil, and unlikely to increase… Indeed, high Chinese culture and art are almost all imitative of western forms: Chinese concert pianists are technically brilliant, but brilliant at Schubert and Rachmaninov. Chinese ballerinas dance to the scores of Diaghilev. The number of Chinese Nobel prizes won on home turf is zero, although there are of course legions of bright Chinese trying to escape to Stanford and Caltech… It is hard to think of a single Chinese sport at the Olympics, compared with umpteen invented by Britain, including ping-pong, I’ll have you know, which originated at upper-class dinner tables and was first called whiff-whaff. The Chinese have a script so fiendishly complicated that they cannot produce a proper keyboard for it. " # Culture # Education # Arts and Artists

" The problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge any more... Consider Uganda, pearl of Africa, as an example of the British record. ... the British planted coffee and cotton and tobacco, and they were broadly right... If left to their own devices, the natives would rely on nothing but the instant carbohydrate gratification of the plantain. You never saw a place so abounding in bananas: great green barrel-sized bunches, off to be turned into matooke. Though this dish (basically fried banana) was greatly relished by Idi Amin, the colonists correctly saw that the export market was limited... The best fate for Africa would be if the old colonial powers, or their citizens, scrambled once again in her direction; on the understanding that this time they will not be asked to feel guilty. " # Missionaries # Love # Age and Aging

" It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving picaninnies; and one can imagine that Blair, twice victor abroad but enmired at home, is similarly seduced by foreign politeness. They say he is shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in Watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird. " # Food and Eating # Love # Politicians and Politics

" The proposed ban on incitement to “religious hatred” make no sense unless it involves a ban on the Koran itself. " # Politics # Hatred # Religion

" Ok, I said to myself as I sighted the bird down the end of the gun. This time, my fine feathered friend, there is no escape. " # Friends and Friendship # Books - Reading # Love

" Not even Mr Blair has been able to erode the unions conviction that we all have a “right” to a minimum wage… Both the minimum wage and the Social Charter would palpably destroy jobs. " # Peace # Politics # Politicians and Politics

" Labour's appalling agenda, encouraging the teaching of homosexuality in schools, and all the rest of it. " # Men # Education # Encouragement

" Not only did I want Bush to win, but we threw the entire weight of The Spectator behind him. " # Politics # Politicians and Politics # Winners and Winning

" That is the best case for Bush; that, among other things, he liberated Iraq. It is good enough for me. " # Politics # Liberals # Politicians and Politics