Home > The Magazine > Cartoons

Monday 12 May 2008

Dare to dream and make your ultimate trip a reality

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Peter Hoskin

Pete suggests

Email registration

Free weekly email update

Great products and special offers for Spectator readers

Click here for great value reader offers and events

Click here for the latest Spectator Wine Offers

Well, hush my mouth

Boris Johnson

Saturday, 22nd March 2003

Boris Johnson wrote for the New York Times, which found some of his words unfit to print

It is a measure of our natural deference to America, cultural and military, that when the New York Times rang up and asked for a piece, I was thrilled. The New York Times, I thought. Three million registered readers in the most powerful country on earth! All the news that's fit to print! You betcha. So I sat up for an hour or so, cracked out an article on Blair, Bush and Iraq, and fired it off to the charming NY Times op-ed editor, whom I shall call Tobin, because that is his name.

Tobin and I spoke the following day, after a long surgery in Henley town hall. 'Booris,' said Tobin, 'we love it! Everybody loves it. But we have, uh, a few issues of political correctness that I have to go through with you.' There followed a bizarre hour-long negotiation with New York, as I sat in the Grays Road carpark, and Tobin read out the politically correct version of my piece. I want to stress that Tobin was at all times a model of humour and cordiality.

1 | 2 | 3 Next page

More articles from: Boris Johnson | this section

Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comment

Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Another Voice

Matthew Parris

A speech recorded in Hansard on an unspecified day in the near future

Lust in a hot climate

Sara Wheeler

Sara Wheeler on Frances Osborne's biography of Idina Sackville

Doctoring the record

Jane Ridley

Jane Ridley reviews Bengt Jangfeldt's biography of Axel Munthe

Escape into silence

Kate Chisholm

Cigarettes and Chocolate (Radio 4); Othello (Radio 3)

Homer’s wisdom

Simon Hoggart

The Simpsons (Channel 4); Midnight Man (ITV); World Snooker Championship (BBC2)

The French Left has much to learn from the English

Bernard-Henri L�vy

Blairism may have had its day on this side of the Channel, but Bernard-Henri Lévy says that the English Third Way should be a model to his Gallic comrades

Old school ties

Taki

Taki lives the High Life

Of vice and men

Taki

Taki lives the High Life

God’s role in politics is not to underwrite bad ideas

Rod Liddle

How those in power take the Almighty's name in vain

Blair may be about to convert, but will that make him a Catholic?

Fraser Nelson

Tony Blair’s coming conversion to the Catholic faith will not be welcomed by all Catholics. There are many in the Vatican, and the Catholic church in this country, who wonder how a politician with his voting record can be admitted to the church.