Poet in the news: Boris Johnson pulls out of Tory leadership race
Only a few days ago Boris Johnson was being tipped as Britain’s next prime minster, following his successful leadership of the Vote Leave campaign to quit the EU. Alarmed but also intrigued by this possibility, Write Out Loud went looking for a poetry angle to all this – and found one without any trouble at all.
Not only did Boris Johnson recently win a £1,000 Spectator competition for the most offensive limerick about Turkey’s current president – he is a former editor of the magazine, after all – but back in 2007 he published a collection of verse titled The Perils of the Pushy Parents: A Cautionary Tale.
Customer reviews on Amazon were generally enthusiastic, such as “Fabulous book. I laughed all the way through. Boris at his best” – although one reader admitted: “I got bored reading it so never got to the end. I like Boris but this one wasn’t for me.” The Guardian’s review, was, predictably, less than complimentary, with Stuart Jeffries observing about what he described as a “sub-Hilaire Belloc” effort: “This year, an estimated 170,000 books will be published and, if I suggest that this is only the 169,999th least worth reading, that is only because I am hedging my bets.”
There are precedents for literature and poetry in Downing Street. While prime minister in 1953 Sir Winston Churchill – Johnson’s great hero - was awarded the Nobel prize for literature "for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values". And when her husband was Labour prime minister in the 1960s Mary Wilson published a bestselling volume of poetry - I bought it for my mum for Christmas – and John Betjeman was a friend of the Wilson family.
Boris Johnson certainly appears to be a champion for poetry, at least of the rhyming kind. In 2014, while mayor of London, he also penned an anti-depression poem that included these lines: “When the RMT is out/ And your tube is up the spout/ And your bus is overheating/ And you’ve missed a crucial meeting/ Read a poem.”
While Write Out Loud is not claiming that publication of this story a few days ago led directly to Boris Johnson pulling out of the Tory leadership race, we thnk it may be more than just coincidence. He did not say that he would be spending more time with his poetry, but ...
M.C. Newberry
Tue 28th Jun 2016 17:00
Good to know that politicians can possess a sense of
humour and a sense of the ridiculous. They need it!
Spike Milligan should have been Poet Laureate!
When you're up with the Lark - in
search of a spark of some relief
for your temper...a-mental!
Try expressions that rhyme
In lines two at a time
And into that good night you may just go gentle!
:-)