ECO SHOP EVENING WITH LIVIA FIRTH
Lily Cole and Felicity Crawshay-Williams
A wonderful evening was had last week admiring jewellery, clothes and ornaments designed by: Lily Cole, Laura Bailey, Alexa Chung among many others. See the blog about it here
Felicity Crawshay-Williams, Jemima Khan and Annie Newman
Jo Johnson is the Candidate for Orpington
Boris’s brother has just won the selection to stand in the safe Conservative seat of Orpington where the current MP, John Horam, is standing down.
Stanley, his father, recently described him as “taller and blonder than Boris” and he is the Financial Times’ South Asia bureau chief. Based in New Delhi since January 2005, he leads the team of FT journalists that covers India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives. In addition to his coverage for the print edition, he writes a regular online column, Engaging India.
A graduate of Balliol College, Oxford, from which he received a first class degree in Modern History, he has worked for the FT since 1997. His first job on the newspaper was on the Lex Column, which he joined after a a stint as a corporate financier in the investment banking division of Deutsche Bank.
He completed an MBA at INSEAD in 2000 and served as an FT Paris correspondent from 2001-2004. He is co-author, with Martine Orange, of The Man who Tried to Buy the World: Jean-Marie Messier and the Rise and Fall of Vivendi Universal (Penguin, 2003).
Many congratulations Jo and we look forward to hearing more about you in the coming months ahead.
What David Cameron can learn from Boris
By special request
Melissa C-W
To follow is the recent article in The Spectator I know many of you will find of interest and relevance. Can the Cameroons really learn anything from Boris? Look forward to hearing your views.
Boris says what he thinks almost without thinking. Cameron’s pronouncements are carefully calibrated. Work on Cameron’s conference speech began in July, Boris’s was written on the train to Manchester
As the most powerful Conservative in Britain, Boris Johnson has plenty to teach his old schoolpal, David Cameron. But, says James Forsyth, the Cameroons are too busy criticising the Mayor’s ‘amateurish’ approach to see what they’re missing
As a piece of political propaganda, the sticker issued by the Shelter housing charity at the last Tory conference came close to perfection. It had a picture of the Mayor of London in jogging gear, with the caption: ‘Boris is making the running on rough sleeping. Join the race, Cameron!’ This was how Shelter thought they could best get their message across: goading Team Cameron into action by comparison with Mr Johnson. It was a clever use of a fast-emerging narrative in Westminster: the great Boris v. Dave rivalry.
It is a point of fact, now, to say that Mr Johnson is the most powerful Conservative in the land. The idea, though, of the Mayor as a great pioneer, beating a path for the laggards in Westminster to follow, is one which annoys many people around Cameron. When I told one shadow Cabinet member that I was doing a piece on what Cameron could learn from Boris they looked at me with genuine concern before warning, ‘they’ll really hate that.’
This tension between the two camps makes the Boris v. Dave story irresistible to the media. But Boris has been busy seasoning this stew, outflanking Cameron and Osborne on those Tory staples of tax and Europe. Among the Tory grassroots, there are now a growing number of Conservatives who like to think of the Mayor as a lodestar: a man less apologetic in his conservatism, and indeed everything else, than the leader.
Stanley Johnson at the Windsor Festival 09
Stanley Johnson and Melissa Crawshay-Williams
Stanley was marvellous giving a talk about his latest book Stanley I Presume and made the audience literally cry with laughter. Thanks for a great time Stanley!
Photograph thanks to Doug Harding at Kaptured Moments International
http://www.kapturedmoments.co.uk/
Stanley Johnson Quiz – Windsor Festival 2009
MANY CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR FANTASTIC WINNER! Well done Wayne from Hertford for his brilliant entry – here are the answers in full:
ANSWERS TO STANLEY JOHNSON & FAMILY QUIZ
1) What is Stanley Johnson’s greatest political achievement?
A. He was MEP for the Isle of Wight.
2) What is the name and nationality of Stanley’s grandfather?
A. Ali Kemal Bey, Turkish journalist.
3) When asked what was the source of the Johnson family’s sense of humour, what did Stanley reply?
A. b) Their blond hair.
4) What long established tradition was Rachel Johnson responsible for abolishing when she was at Ashdown School?
A. Corporal punishment. Rachel was discovered having a midnight feast and was given the option of losing two half holidays or being beaten. She chose the beating. The Head, realising he could not beat a girl, abolished the punishment for the whole school.
5) From this list of famous people: Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, Benjamin Disraeli, William Wilberforce and Pericles, select the hero of : a) Stanley Johnson b) Boris Johnson.
A. Stanley’s hero is Winston Churchill. Boris’s hero is Pericles.
6) What sport do Stanley and Boris play together?
A. Squash. (They also play tennis).
7) What literary award did Rachel Johnson win?
A. The annual Literary Review’s Bad Sex in Fiction Award for Shire Hell . See the report here .
8) From this list of famous films, select the favourite of (a) Stanley and (b) Boris.
A. (a) Stanley’s favourite film is “Chariots of Fire”. (b) Boris’s favourite film is “Jaws” and this has given rise to one of his most hilarious jokes. When first running for Mayor of London, Boris declared that another of his heroes was the Mayor of Amity.
9) Stanley Johnson has always firmly believed in the value of a classical education. Could you therefore give an example of praeteritio, using Boris Johnson’s speeches on the website http://www.boris-johnson.com/ as evidence.
A. “…Praeteritio is a common tool of persuasive speech. A skilled practitioner can ruin an opponent’s reputation while seeming reluctant to do so…”
Praeteritio is a form of irony. It means saying one thing, but meaning another.
A fuller explanation of the term is given in the link below.
http://www.tocquevillian.com/articles/0008.html
Articles by Boris that make use of praeteritio are “MPs’ expenses” “Ayatollah Khomeini” and “Simon Heffer” amongst others.
10) How did Boris Johnson come to be called Boris?
A. Boris is named after Boris Litwin, a White Russian whom Stanley and Charlotte Johnson met in Mexico City. Boris Litwin gave the Johnsons two first class tickets to New York, so that Charlotte, who was 8 months pregnant, could avoid a long and uncomfortable bus journey. In gratitude, Stanley named his first born Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.
*You can meet Stanley Johnson at the Windsor Festival on Friday 2nd October when he is giving a talk and signing books*
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