Just say no

Like everyone else, I might as well get my two-cents in while the story’s still hot. About the sainted one’s problems with Liverpool, that is. What a crock! I might be accused of pandering, but to hell with them. When I went over the top about the Puerto Rican parade some time ago, it looked like curtains. The then Big Bagel mayor Rudy Giuliani threatened to have me deported, and all sorts of busybodies got in on the act. But no one from The Spectator forced me to do anything like what Michael Howard did to dear old Boris. In fact, on the contrary, Frank Johnson even went so far as to introduce me during a Speccie dinner as the Puerto Rican ambassador to the Court of St James’s; a very nice touch, I thought.

The one who got it right about the present brouhaha was the other Michael (Gove), in the Times. ‘Alongside the disciplined ranks of parliamentary infantry, we need a few cossacks…’ In other words, individuality and personality count. Crushing individuality, however, is what modern Tories are all about, and that’s why they’re running as badly as they are in the polls. Once upon a time Tories and freedom of expression were synonymous. (Can you see Super Mac or the Iron Lady ordering an apology?) No longer. Boris might be a bit of a loose cannon, but since when has that been a bad thing?

Howard is a lawyer, with a lawyer’s fear of ugly truths and political incorrectness. The Spectator speaks for Middle England, and does not and should not mince its words. If people misunderstood what the leading article was all about, too bad. Apologising may be the flavour du jour nowadays, but we at the Speccie march to a different drummer.