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Sunday 7 September 2008

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'I'm prejudiced in his favour'

Some advice for Boris from a proud father

Stanley Johnson

Wednesday, 18th July 2007

Stanley Johnson says that his son is no buffoon, that his ability to make people laugh doesn’t mean he’s a lightweight, and that he should not get bogged down in ‘consultation’

Boris was born in New York on 19 June 1964. I missed the birth since I had slipped outside for a moment to buy a pizza. When I first saw him he was bundled up in the hospital nursery with only the soles of his feet showing. These were completely black. This puzzled me. Had his mother, I wondered, somehow managed to give birth to the wrong baby?

I later discovered that in New York, for reasons of security, newborn babies’ feet are dipped in black ink and an imprint taken for the record. Apparently there is no point in fingerprinting an infant as the skin in their tiny hands is too soft.

It didn’t occur to me at that moment, just over 43 years ago, that I might be looking at the insteps of a future mayor of London. Like most new parents, my predominant emotion was gratitude that Boris had managed to emerge into the light of day with limbs and mental faculties apparently intact.

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Labour’s punishment freaks are hounding honest citizens

Ross Clark

Ross Clark says that far from keeping our streets safer or cleaner, the government’s new force of amateur policemen are ignoring the worst offenders and pursuing law-abiding innocents instead

‘Whoever killed Benazir wants to kill me’

Christina Lamb

Christina Lamb interviews the husband of the late Benazir Bhutto, Asif Ali Zardari, who hopes to be named President of Pakistan this Saturday

Never mind the Olympics — get set for the Jubilee

Robert Hardman

Free and open to everyone, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012 will eclipse the London Games, says Robert Hardman — an unforgettable tribute to the monarch

A pilgrim’s progress for the 21st century

Mary Wakefield

Mary Wakefield talks to the author William P. Young, whose self-published religious novel has astounded the publishing world and sold nearly two million copies

In defence of David Southall

Theodore Dalrymple

Theodore Dalrymple examines the evidence against two much-vilified British paediatricians, Professors Southall and Meadow, and finds it sadly lacking

The châtelaine and the wanderer

Anne Chisholm

In Tearing Haste: Letters between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor, edited by Charlotte Mosley

Poles are the fall guys of the immigration debate

Dennis Sewell

The taboo on discussing migration has only been partly lifted, says Dennis Sewell. We pretend that all migrants are the same, whereas the statistics reveal some uncomfortable truths