Boris audio gaffes needed
We’ve just received a request from a respected source asking for advice: they’re trying to locate and compile Boris gaffes. They must be audio rather than textual, so unfortunately the bounty of gaffes available from Boris’ published oeuvre is no use. I am sorely feeling the absence of Mr. Stop Boris at this point, so would appreciate any help blog readers and Boris-stoppers can provide. Thanks.
Of course the archive of this blog provides a rich seam of links to videos and audio files which I am mining at the moment!
May 2nd, 2008 at 17.14
The only one I can think of off the top of my head is the interview with ‘Eddie’ that a transcript went up for recently.
Perhaps not a gaffe as such but he was incredibly rude, saying at one point ‘Listen IF YOU DON’T MIND!’ which is kinda gaffey I guess…
Good luck and thanks for all the hard work.
May 2nd, 2008 at 18.38
It’s been a while since I posted here. I left because there was rarely anything new or interesting, just permutations on the same tired fare of watermelons, buffoons and picaninnies which most fair-minded people saw for what it was - a pathetic attempt to discredit Boris Johnson by putting the worst possible interpretation on everything he has said or done in his life.
In the end, you had scraped the barrel and had nothing left to go on. Boris fought a straight and honest campaign unlike the arrogant, devious little creep who millions of voters wanted to see hanging from a great height.
As for your constant needling about Boris’s “gaffes” I will sign off with this piece published today by his biographer, Andrew Gimson. It explains rather well why Boris has triumphed where Gordon and his entire mob of earnest, politically correct drones on the liberal left, have failed.
I hope you have enjoyed your fun. I will now enjoy the fun of watching you eat your poisonous words and choking on them.
__________
Ronald Reagan was written off by serious commentators as a lightweight and Boris Johnson has benefited from the same scornful underestimate.
If I had a pound for every time I have been asked, as Boris’s biographer and someone who has known him for 20 years, whether he is just a “clown” or “buffoon”, I would be a rich man.
There is a kind of commentator who simply cannot imagine that there is room for humour in politics, and who takes it as a personal insult when such a candidate wins.
But the public are desperate for jokes, and grateful to anyone who has the not inconsiderable ability required to provide them. Nor are the public as worried as the press by what are known as “gaffes”.
Boris is reputed to be “gaffe-prone”, but that has only increased his appeal to the man and also the woman on the Clapham omnibus. Politicians who spend their lives avoiding gaffes are liable to become dull and sterile, with no personality of their own and a morbid fear of taking risks.
The true test of a politician is his or her ability to recover from gaffes and other embarrassments which would sink a lesser mortal. Boris has suffered some fearful embarrassments in his time: it was only in 2004 that he was sent to do penance in Liverpool. The following month he engaged in an ill-advised battle with the tabloid press by denying to it that he had had an affair (the correct answer was to say that it was none of their business), whereupon he was sacked by Michael Howard from the Tory front bench.
Yet here he is, less than four years later, he is on the verge of becoming the most powerful elected Tory in the land. No other Conservative of any substance was prepared to enter the lists against Ken Livingstone: Boris was the only one with the necessary courage, ambition, optimism and energy, and now he has reaped his reward.
It is true that during the campaign, Boris tempered his love of telling jokes. Determined to win, he displayed a formidable self-discipline. In the last days of the campaign, Ken’s people put out a series of postcards about Boris which ended with the punchline, “Suddenly he’s not so funny.”
This was true, but not in the sense that Ken meant it. Boris had shown to a wider public that he is not just a comedian, but possesses a most serious desire to win.
That seriousness is why, should he win, Boris will strain every sinew to be a successful mayor. He may or may not succeed, but he will not set out to make a fool of himself.
Gordon Brown has just reminded us that a dour earnestness of demeanour is no guarantee of success in British politics. Other qualities are needed, including the courage and judgment needed to decide when to place your future in the hands of the voters.
Boris had the guts to place his future in the hands of Londoners and they have decided he has one. Now it is up to him what he does with it.
Andrew Gimson is the author of Boris - the Rise of Boris Johnson (Pocket Books, 7.99 pounds)
May 2nd, 2008 at 18.48
Labourboy: thanks for the suggestion. It’s one I mentioned in my reply but didn’t make a bit thing of because, as you say, it’s not all that gaffey in the scheme of things.
And an old friend, Mr. Dawes! Mr. Stop Boris is far better at political debate than I, so I shan’t linger here demonstrating my lack of technique, but I do think it’s ironic to accuse the SB campaign of being ‘poisonous’ when we have at least had evidence for our accusations, unlike the assorted smears and lies peddled by the Back Boris campaign, the Standard, et al.
May 2nd, 2008 at 22.14
And what “assorted smears and lies” would they be?
A precise analysis, please, of the “smears and lies” put about by Back Boris campaign, and “those peddled by the Standard”, whose lawyers and editors seem to have found them unassailable.
You may recall that Ken’s people saturated London mosques with leaflets claiming Boris wants to ban the Koran - all written in Bengali, with the English version cleansed, in the hope no one else would notice. If any of your “smears and lies” come within a mile of this breathtaking fraud, I will offer you a personal grovelling apology.
I would also welcome some constructive comments on the points raised by Andrew Grimson, which you have ignored.