For ****'S Sake, the Swearing Mayor Speaks the Language of London ; Boris Johnson's Outburst Showed an Uncontrolled Temper - but One Author Whose Swear Box Is Full has Some Sympathy with His Plight

Evening Standard - London › February 13, 2009

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Summary

ACCORDING to a leaked minute, Boris Johnson uttered the most commonly employed fricative expletive no fewer than 10 times during a recent phone conversation with the Home Affairs select committee chairman, Keith Vaz. What the two men were discussing -- certain inconsistencies in the Mayor's evidence to the select committee, concerning his response to the arrest of the MP Damian Green -- was no more than the usual I-said/he-said of politicos' infighting, and frankly, of about as much interest as listening to teenage girls bitching, so I won't either bore or offend you with the verbatim account.

The Mayor says he used the f-word only three times, but I have my doubts. Vaz's minutes -- unlike so much else that he does -- have a certain ring of authenticity; and the main reason they're so plausible is that they show us the Mayor swearing like any man who is simultaneously frightened that he's been found out and angry that he hasn't got his own way.

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Extract

For ****'S Sake, the Swearing Mayor Speaks the Language of London ; Boris Johnson's Outburst Showed an Uncontrolled Temper - but One Author Whose Swear Box Is Full has Some Sympathy with His Plight

This we can believe of Boris; we know his genial buffoon shtick is just that, and that underneath the white-blond thatch there's a furnace, stoked redbloody-hot by ambition. We also intuit -- rightly as it transpires -- that sang froid is not the Johnson strong suit....

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