Boris johnson

I recently got round to reading Francis Fukuyama’s famous book The End of History and the Last Man. As well as heralding the triumph of liberal democracy, he explains that a snake will always lurk in the garden, for human nature is not entirely won over by the gospel of equality. He introduces us to the term megalothymia, the desire to distinguish oneself from the rest, be the best. It’s expressed in capitalism, sport and other cultural pursuits. It is also likely to be expressed in politics: leaders will probably emerge who don’t have any new ideology, but want to rock the liberal democratic boat. They are motivated by a

To subscribe to The Spectator’s weekly podcast, for free, visit the iTunes store or click here for our RSS feed. Alternatively, you can follow us on SoundCloud. Boris Johnson has kickstarted his battle bus tour of Britain which he hopes will convince people to vote out of the EU. But before he hit the road, he made a direct pitch to Spectator readers in an exclusive interview. The former mayor of London set out his Brexit battle lines, as he spoke to James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson, saying: ‘It is unquestionably true that I’ve changed. But so has the EU. And of the two of us, it’s the EU that

Is the Brexit campaign ‘morphing into Ukip’? That’s what Sir John Major will say he fears is happening later. In a speech at Oxford University, he’ll argue that those calling for Britain to leave the EU are ‘fuelling prejudice on immigration’. He’ll also say that: ‘As the leave arguments implode one by one, some of the Brexit leaders morph into Ukip and turn to their default position – immigration. I urge them to take care, this is dangerous territory that – if handled carelessly can open up long-term divisions in our society’. So does he have a point? It’s definitely credible to see how some elements of the leave camp

The right, as well as the left, is home to the kind of flaming conspiracy nut who, in Bertie Wooster’s words, make ‘strong men climb trees and pull them up after them’. In another life, the activists for Vote Leave might have joined the thousands of hollowed-eyed onanists who post abuse under newspaper articles from their parents’ spare rooms, or become columnists for the Mail; fringe figures, best ignored. But just as on the left of politics the fringe is becoming the mainstream, so on the right, brooding paranoids, who cannot face a hard fact or uncomfortable argument squarely, are moving in to take over the Conservative Party. Vote Leave

With the May elections over, the EU referendum campaign is now in full swing. David Cameron started the day warning that Brexit could put peace in Europe at risk. In his speech at the British Museum this morning, the PM also asked whether leaving the EU was a risk worth taking. Here’s what he said: Boris hit back by making his case for voting out, saying that negotiating on behalf of the EU is like ‘trying to ride a vast 28-man pantomime horse’: He also sung ‘Ode to Joy’ in German: And Boris even appeared to forget the name of the city which, until a few days ago, he was

[audioplayer src=”http://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/262486539-the-spectator-podcast-erdogans-europe.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth, Fraser Nelson and Isabel Hardman discuss Boris” startat=552] Listen [/audioplayer] After an eight-year detour into municipal government, Boris Johnson has now returned to national politics. The former mayor of London will mark this moment by going on the stump for the Leave campaign. He has some catching up to do: while never far from the public eye, he was absent from the Commons for seven years. Even when back in Parliament after the general election, Boris felt he could not take the cabinet job that was offered to him. But his time at City Hall hasn’t dented his ambitions; quite the opposite. He is the bookies’

Jeremy Hunt has been facing questions in the Commons ahead of tomorrow’s junior doctors strike. The Health Secretary said the industrial action was ‘wholly unjustified’ and said ‘we are proud of the NHS but we must turn that pride into actions’: His sentiment wasn’t enough to placate Dennis Skinner, however, with the MP for Bolsover telling Hunt to ‘wipe that smirk off your face’: Labour’s Heidi Alexander insisted tomorrow would be one of the saddest days in the NHS – and said that the Health Secretary was to blame: Nicky Morgan also faced a tough time in the Commons as she defended Tory plans for all schools to become academies

Nick Cohen is predictably over-the-top in his response to Boris Johnson’s piece about President Obama’s intervention in the Brexit debate in today’s Sun. He begins by claiming he’s approaching this subject ‘with the caution of a lawyer and the deference of a palace flunkey’. He then goes on to reprimand Boris for suggesting Obama has an ‘ancestral dislike of the British empire’ on account of his ‘part-Kenyan’ heritage and links this to his support for the Remain campaign. We’ll come to that comment in a minute, but Cohen goes on to conflate these remarks with the worst excesses of the birther movement: I’m not someone who throws accusations of racism around