Boris Johnson
I was the Napoleon of Notting Hill. I was in charge of all the transport, housing and development environment. If I could just get on and do. The Prime Minister is there not just to serve the people. He's there because of his backbenchers or her backbenchers. They all think that, uh, there they are, the Prime Minister and the only thing in their path is you. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Is there an argument for more big uniteable projects? 

Boris Johnson
Definitely, yes. This is something we seem to have slightly lost, that perhaps you have to have a direction. We need to get on with things. You get growth and optimism. Investment that Britain would have a story to tell again. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Welcome back to the smokeless word. Today I am truly honoured to be joined by Boris Johnson, former mayor of London, Foreign Secretary and of course, Prime Minister Boris gives us a first person perspective on the defining moments of his incredibly storied career. He tells us about why he loved being the Napoleon of Notting Hill, the NATO country he considered invading, and why we need more terror in Westminster. More big projects that people can unite around and more promiscuous reading. This podcast is intended for regulators, scientists, policy makers and investors only. The views expressed in this podcast are the personal opinions of the speaker only. Any references to products having a reduced risk or reduced harm are based on the weight of evidence and assume no continued smoking. This material is not intended for US audiences. Boris, welcome. 

Boris Johnson
Thank you very much. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Welcome. Delighted to have you. I hope you liked the studio. 

Boris Johnson
I love it, 

Kingsley Wheaton
You know, it's I just wanted to ask you as an opener, if I could, about your formative years. Eton, Balliol, Brussels

Boris Johnson
Had a blissful Brussels. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Just just tell me a bit about that. How did how did that shape today's Boris. 

Boris Johnson
Well, I think you've just got to. It's it was the the brothers and sisters were the crucial thing for me. And, you know, my family was wonderful. I mean, like so many other kids, my my parents broke up, but it didn't really, you know, it would be totally nonsense, rubbish to say that we were unhappy or, you know, suffered as a consequence. On the contrary, we had this amazing gang and we always played together and my whole life can be explained psychologically as a struggle for mastery or, or for the appearance or, or just trying to stay in any way ahead of my siblings, each of whom, you know, could outgun me in all sorts of different ways. And so Rachel, my sister. Yes. Constant battle to stay ahead of Rachel as soon as she was born. Right? I was only eighteen months old. That was it. 

Kingsley Wheaton
And how about tennis? 

Boris Johnson
All my life can be interpreted through. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Jo plays tennis. 

Boris Johnson
Jo is far better than me. Okay. And cricket 

Kingsley Wheaton
and cricket as well. 

Boris Johnson
Yeah. So I went to. We went to, we went to. We went to sixes. You know the thing. The wonderful thing where you get drunk and they bowl at you very fast. Jo was tremendously good and he was in the the eleven at school. I was nowhere near it. Nowhere near it. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Yeah. So a happy childhood. Very, very formative. Yeah. And then I just wanted to ask you about your, your time in Brussels, I think with the with the Telegraph and the times, perhaps not in that order. Early, early nineties. Is that about right? 

Boris Johnson
Yes, yes. 

Kingsley Wheaton
What what was that? The wellspring of some of your later politics and, you know, thoughts on the EU and Brexit or were they not. 

Boris Johnson
Sure. So when I went to Brussels as a reporter. Absolutely. Because it was the moment, I think it was nineteen eighty nine and it was the moment when the whole thing really took off. And if you remember, what happened was that the the French and they had this brilliant commission president who everybody's forgotten now, but he called Jacques Delors, Jacques Delors. He was, you know, I fought the law and the law won. I mean the law. The law was this amazing, brilliant mind who gave wonderful leadership in his own fashion to the European Commission, the Commission of the of the EEC, as it then was, and the French decided that they had to respond to the prospect of German reunification by intensifying the political links between France and Germany, and intensifying the. The idea of a. Of a united Europe, a united European community. So they created this huge drive towards monetary union. In particular. This was Delors real brainchild because if you wanted to tie Germany down politically, Then the French thought and still think that the institutions of the EEC, the EU, were the best way to do it. And so suddenly this story that had been a total backwater and, you know, boring stuff about agriculture, the Common Agricultural policy, not boring, but, you know, didn't get on the front page much, suddenly became politically dynamite because there was this huge pressure to create a United States of Europe out of what was then just the twelve countries of the of what was then the EEC. And they had this succession of, of treaties to, to deepen the cooperation and basically to turn it into a federal structure with a single body of law enforced by the European Court of Justice, a body of law from which there could be no dissent and no redress. I mean, very important. You couldn't change. No country could change European law. And as the body of European law got bigger and bigger. It became really more and more tyrannical. And so people freaked out and quite rightly, in my view, in in the UK. And suddenly it became a very hot, hot story.

Kingsley Wheaton
And, but was that um, you know, thirty year ago, Europe was it, was it different today? Did despite all of some of your concerns and some of your rights, you know, was, was there more optimism or, or do you think it's just a perpetuation? 

Boris Johnson
I think that then people genuinely thought that the exercise of creating a single market, uh, a single currency, breaking down these barriers to trade as they saw it, would stimulate growth and economic opportunity in, in the, amongst European countries. Then it was just twelve. It's now, as you know, twenty, twenty seven, twenty seven and the sad and interesting thing is that that hasn't happened. And so, You know, uh, when I was first looking at it thirty or forty years ago, um, there was this thing called the Cecchini Report in, in nineteen eighty six, which everybody's forgotten about. The Single European Act was 

Kingsley Wheaton
forty years ago. 

Boris Johnson
It was exactly forty years ago. And, and, uh, and what it said was that if you got rid of these fiddly barriers to, to trade, then you, then you would create European champions or be on the scale of American corporations and you would create growth and, and job opportunities and people would circulate throughout the EU. And actually, um, that didn't really happen at all. And the comparative growth rates of, of the European Union and the United States have been astonishing in the sense that the EU has really stagnated and the US has gone, you know, gangbusters. And so you ask. You know, Kingsley, was there more optimism? There was much more optimism. People thought, this is it. We're creating something amazing and new. Yes, but it didn't happen. And it was actually a recipe for stagnation and sclerosis. And they're still making the same mistake. Whenever something new happens, they think the best thing is to is to regulate. There's a new European directive on AI. When there isn't actually any AI in Europe or in the EU or nothing by comparison with what you got in the US. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Where does that where does that regulatory sort of where does that drive come from? 

Boris Johnson
I think it's so there's two things. There's there's a there's a there's a desire to break down barriers. And I mean, I mean, I'll tell you the answer is that they began with a fantastic principle called the cassis de Dijon principle. And our listeners, which are maybe dropping off already, but I'll tell you. Yeah, there was a wonderful ruling of the European Court of Justice when, in the days when they got things right, when they said that if you put something on the market for sale in one European country and it was deemed edible or safe or whatever in that European country, then ceteris paribus or whatever, it should be capable of being sold in any European country. And this was the Cassis de Dijon judgment. And I think it was because some non-French manufacturer of Cassis de Dijon, you know what Cassis de Dijo is?

Kingsley Wheaton
It's a blackcurrant er

Boris Johnson
You put it in Kir toasting the champagne socialists. Cassis de Dijon, and the court originally said anything that could be sold in one European country could be sold anywhere. Brilliant, right? Yeah. Libertarian free. Yes. Yes. That's what we believe in. But then that wasn't good enough because the European Commission, what they probably the problem was that countries continued to apply various different standards and blah, blah, blah. Yeah. And so the European Commission said, uh, we must be more ruthless, right? And we must have not Mutual recognition, which is the Cassis de Dijon principle. You must have harmonization. You must impose a uniformity across this whole vast territory of hundreds of millions of people. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Yes, it's all the same. 

Boris Johnson
So we can have perfect circulation of goods? Yes. 

Kingsley Wheaton
No friction. 

Boris Johnson
No friction at all. Yeah. Um, and that's the first reason. The second reason for all the regulation was that it was a behavioral reason, a psychological reason. They thought that if like the, like the Romans making you obey certain laws about worship of the emperor or, or whatever, or, you know, you became Roman in your in your heart. Yes. Right. If a subject. Yeah. And, and so it was a behavioural thing. And I think they thought that the more we create European level regulations and standardization, the, the, the more chance we have of producing this sense of this European feeling that they wanted. You've got to remember that the community was born of a noble urge to prevent France and Germany ever going to war again. And it was it was born of the desire of actually quite brilliant states men. I think they were mainly men. Uh, who, who, who wanted to, you know, really to, to, to rebuild the Roman Empire, but without the legions and without slavery and without emperor worship. And, um, that was the idea. And that failed too, because, because ultimately people just want to be part of their, their language group and, and they couldn't, they. Yeah. I think that's one of the problems we got. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Is there a bit of overreach? I mean, I sort of...

Boris Johnson
Yes there is a lot of overreach. 

Kingsley Wheaton
..sort of vaguely understood economic union, I think, and probably defensive union if you know, although that's not all together in shrine, but sort of fiscal union, monetary union. It's always felt where regulatory union, where it felt where it got harder at that point. 

Boris Johnson
Yeah. I think the problem with the monetary union and the fiscal union was you're really getting into deep democratic problems because, you know, if you're tax raising authority has got to be your national parliament. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And your taxes have got to be set with proper democratic consent. And you can't have either the rates or anything else really determined by by a supranational body. Yeah. And that was that was the problem. And yeah, so it ran into it ran into big problems. And people, you know, people constantly make this comparison with the US and they say, oh, Europe should have, you know, Americans often say this, you know, the Americans look at America. They say, why can't you guys just do it? You just become like us in this sort of narcissistic way of Americans. They imagine that everybody wants to be like the United States, which in many ways they do, by the way. But. The United States is very different. They have a single language. Yes. They have a single set of political institutions. Yes, they have a single political culture. They have a single flag, and so on and so on. Constitution, for example. For example. Yeah. So. So that was the problem with. And so yes, there was more optimism. Yes. And it was an exciting, heady time. And there was clearly an issue about what do you do with Germany? Mhm. You know, the French weren't being wholly mad. My grandfather, who was a sort of international jurist and lawyer who sat on for years on the, um, the European court in Strasbourg or the commission of the court in Strasbourg. Um, always used to say, I remember when I was a kid, he said, don't ever let Germany reunite. Mhm. You know, I think he was wrong. I think Germany is a wonderful country and he's proved his fears have proved groundless. But in nineteen eighty nine, yes, a lot of people were freaking out. Yeah, Mrs. Thatcher, froke, Mitterrand  froke, everybody froke they did, but it sort of set the. Yeah, it set the the the tram tracks for, for the whole agenda of European integration. Yes. And, and I always thought that Britain would really struggle with it. And we, you know, we always. So we had a terrible situation which British politicians would, would tell their publics, you know, oh well this is, you know, all this federal stuff that's not for us. No, no, no, we're not part of that. No, no, no don't worry. And by the way, we've won a great victory. We have we have protected the euro. We've protected the the British prawn cocktail flavour crisps. Right. We have we have protected, we have protected the great British sausage or whatever. Yes, yes. Anyway, you know, um, it didn't work. It didn't work. And I think the British public were never really very happy with it. And Hugo Young, the Guardian journalist, wrote a very good book called This Blessed Plot. Right, which is a sort of clever play on words. You remember, it's from John of Gaunt's speech in in Richard II. This blessed plot, this earth, this is England or whatever. Um, and it was a plot. Well, Hugo Young was saying, was that the the whole project to keep Britain in the European Economic Community and then European Union. Yes. Was very carefully organised by. Yes. Clever, nice, good members of the establishment who thought that that was better for us than having. Even though the public was really quite sceptical. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Yeah, well, we might if we perhaps come back to that in a moment. Can I just quickly turn to your time as mayor of London? Yeah, two times mayor of London. Um, I, I got the impression, but this is me looking from a big distance. That seemed like a very happy period in your life. 

Boris Johnson
I loved it. I was well, I loved it because I had I was absolutely unchallenged and unchallengeable. It was a completely monarchical arrangement. I was, I was, I was, I was the Napoleon of Notting Hill, as it were. You know, I just had, um, I don't think they understood when they set up the mayoralty quite how wonderful a job it would be. Right? Right. Because they actually had quite big budgets and quite big powers. And I was in charge of all the transport. I was in charge of the police. I was in charge of housing and development environment. I mean, huge amount of stuff I could just get on and do. So if you kind of have an active sort of personality, you love doing things. Yeah. You love. You know, ever since I was a kid, I just loved making stuff. Yeah. Always making. I used to make mud pie cities with my brother Leo. Okay. I remember the pleasure of it. Yeah. You know, just just in the back garden with with with matchsticks and and bits of wood and and mud, literally making streets and houses. And then suddenly you're in charge of the most beautiful, biggest city in Europe. And it was just massively satisfying. Yeah. 

Kingsley Wheaton
You had a great team, didn't you? 

Boris Johnson
Was brilliant. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Team was that was that was that was that was that. That must have been important. That was probably the key.

Boris Johnson
It was was it decisive? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah it was. And I was so lucky. So I had an absolutely. I mean, I had a brilliant team at the at the top of City Hall. By the way, over half of them were female, right? If you look at the and I think, you know, we went on into Downing Street, I think, you know, one of the criticisms that was later made is we didn't do enough to have enough good women at the top in number ten. Mhm. Um, I that was not the case in City Hall. And we also had, I had a brilliant deputy called Simon Milton, uh, who was the former leader of Westminster Council. Absolutely wonderful, who sadly died. Um, but then his successor was Eddie Lister, who was, you know. I was very lucky because Simon and Eddie really did know the intricacies of planning and housing and all these things, which I had to learn very fast. You know, I had no background in this, and they taught me a huge amount. Mhm. 

Kingsley Wheaton
And did were you Did you feel that as you moved later on in your career? It was assembling a team was different to to what it was. As the mayor, were there different challenges because you're dealing with a different. 

Boris Johnson
Yeah, I think that look, I mean, I think it's no particular secret to close students of politics such as you, Kingsley, that, you know, I made one particular error in my appointments when I got to number ten. Right. And I paid a heavy price for that. And. Well, I mean, you know, he had his he had his points, but then it just became sort of a sort of sabotage operation. Um, and that was a, that was a goof, but um the cabinet was fine. The cabinet, the cabinet was fine. I think that um, the big difference, I think what probably lulled me into a false sense of optimism and about becoming prime minister was the whole experience of the mayoralty? 

Kingsley Wheaton
Yes, I think that's what I wondered, whether 

Boris Johnson
The mayoralty. Um. We were so busy the whole time on things that always felt positive. Um, and, you know, it was whether it was improving public transport or improving air quality or, uh, tackling deaths by or injuries by, uh, by fire or putting more bicycles on the road or cutting crime as we did quite, quite radically, you know, everywhere, everything we did. You could see directly and immediately how it was disproportionately benefiting the lowest income groups, because, you know, who are the people who suffer from crime? Who are the people who get killed in fires? Um, who, who benefits most from public transport and and, and what happened was actually in eight years, you saw you saw the whole city get considerably more prosperous and safer. Yes. And so I think that it filled us with a sense of purpose and idealism. Mhm. And somehow or other, that isn't how it works in Westminster. Mhm. Whereas because in Westminster, you're suddenly you're the way our system is very good in some ways, because the Prime Minister is is there not just to serve the people or not just at the, uh, the behest of the of the people who voted for his government? He's there because of his backbenchers or her backbenchers. Yeah. Yeah. And certainly in the Tory system, those backbenchers really do control things. And so, so to an extent that I hadn't really bargained for or understood. You have to spend, you should spend an awful lot of time trying to appease them. Yeah. Flatter them. Yeah. Say what geniuses there is that they are. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Would you would you do more of that if you had your time again? 

Boris Johnson
I would, I would really, really stuffed that up. Yeah. Honestly, 

Kingsley Wheaton
Was that just an underestimation. Was it? Was it as you said? 

Boris Johnson
I just think I thought, well, I thought, I thought it was like city Hall. I thought, you know, we were all in it together. Come on, let's get on and do it. But it's not how they see it. Because you've got to remember that MPs, they're not they weren't like, um the, the deputy mayors or the officials working in city Hall. They each one, each MP is convinced that he or she has, has got the field marshal's baton in his or her knapsack. Right. They all think that their. They are the next Prime Minister, but one. or maybe even, you know, the next Prime Minister, full stop. And the only thing in their path is you. And and the sooner you can be, you know, removed as an obstacle of their otherwise irresistible rise to power. Yeah, yeah. The better. Does that make. And that is not often how. But somehow or other, we've got to a stage where we've got pretty inert governments 

Kingsley Wheaton
Has first past the post run its course. Boris, you know, in a world where you have fragmentation, you know, and you can command that majority on a thirty two, thirty three percent, you know, is that is that is that. 

Boris Johnson
No, I think my argument would would tend to say no, because my argument would be we need stronger government. I mean, I think it's it's more a failure of, of, of politics with a small P in Westminster, you know, the, the whips aren't doing their job. The there's not enough, there's not enough terror. Um you know, there should be the, the backbenchers should be in a state of total, total fear. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Can I take you back to a to a happier time? Yeah. The Olympics. 

Boris Johnson
Oh, it's twenty twelve. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Yes. I think you wrote I'm probably paraphrasing, but you know the extraordinary results Britain can achieve when united by a shared goal or something. 

Boris Johnson
It was something to it was probably. Yes it was. It was an amazing time, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah, it was very happy. And I think it was partly because it had been such a nightmare. The run up had been so exhausting and everybody was, everybody was so um anti the Olympics and they hated the idea of these, you know, these Olympic bureaucrats in their ZIL lanes going up and down the city.

Kingsley Wheaton
And what was that profligacy. Was that what 

Boris Johnson
they hated the idea of the. Yes. I mean, you know, we, we spent I mean the way we did, we did spend, uh, we, we did deliver them on time and on budget, but that's only because we trebled the budget. Okay, remember the budget was going to be three billion dollars. It then became nine point three billion. So that was our cunning, our cunning manoeuvre. But it was fantastic. And I would totally defend every penny of that expenditure because, you know, well, at least when I was running the show, I mean, East London really did benefit and the country looked incredible. The whole everybody looked at Britain and they saw this cheerful, united, happy place that was winning all these gold medals as well. And not just in sports that involve sitting down. Yeah, we're very good at, you know, riding and cycling and yachting and whatever, all that sort of stuff. Yeah. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Um shooting, 

Boris Johnson
shooting. Yeah. But we were good at running too. Yeah. That's right. And jumping. Yes, yes. And you know things anybody can do. Yeah. That's right. It was amazing. Yeah. And people just, you know honestly people's serotonin levels totally rose. It was I mean, I made a speech at the Olympics, which got me into terrible trouble. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Did you? What did you say? 

Boris Johnson
I said that we basically invented every sport under the sun. Are okay, including including ping pong, and, you know, hockey. Yeah, okay. 

Kingsley Wheaton
And is the ping pong true? Or did you make that up? 

Boris Johnson
It's absolutely true. 

Kingsley Wheaton
That is absolutely true. We make ping pong. 

Boris Johnson
Yeah. Yeah. Um. Yeah. Um. Association football. Rugby cricket. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Yeah. Yeah. Fives probably.

Boris Johnson
Tennis. Yeah. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Tennis squash 

Boris Johnson
golf squash 

Kingsley Wheaton
Squash might have been India. I have a feeling. Not sure. I'll find out. Um, so did you get, did you get, uh, harangued for that speech? Did you actually. 

Boris Johnson
Not really. No, no, no, it's all right. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Was this before or after you were hanging from your. 

Boris Johnson
This is this is in the the Beijing Olympics. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Oh, the Beijing Olympics. 

Boris Johnson
It was in two thousand and eight. I did all that. And you showed my complete sort of lack of diplomatic skills. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Fast forward to twenty nineteen. Yes. Um eighty seat majority. Um, it was a morning of genuine optimism for some. I mean, you must have been thrilled. 

Boris Johnson
Well, it was it was incredible. I mean, I, I didn't I kind of knew that we could be on for a good result. Yeah. Yeah. Because you know, we, we hadn't had a bad campaign. You know, we'd been pretty out there. I'd done just about every stunt under the sun. Mhm. And we had a very clear and consistent message. Mhm. And I think we had a great vision, which was the levelling up vision, which was the right thing for the country and still is the right thing for the country. And I was very excited by it. And, you know, so the first thing we had to do was get Brexit done, which we did. And, you know, we dispatched that very effectively. But then I wanted to get on and do and do the whole agenda. And the problem was we got we got slightly blown off course by Covid. Well, that was I mean, it really delayed us. That was what happened. And by the time by the time we were out, we were out of it. I was in the political weeds myself. And it was a problem. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Is that is that I was going to ask you, is that how it felt? Was it? It must have been earth shattering. I mean, the election thing was the thirteenth or the morning of the election. Thirteenth of December. Yes. Covid was what, two, eight weeks, nine weeks later, if that. Did it feel like it shattered the 

Boris Johnson
it hit it hit it emerged that month in December twenty nineteen. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Exactly. Literally at the same time. 

Boris Johnson
Yeah. That's why it's called Covid nineteen because isn't it? I think it is. Is it really okay? 

Kingsley Wheaton
Well, well well it will be now. 

Boris Johnson
I think it is. I think it is, I think. And um. Yeah, no. And then really by you're completely right. It was sort of like, I mean, it's all in the, it's all in the book, but, but you know, by the beginning of February, it was starting to knock around. And then when you march, March, We locked down. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Of course. March. I remember it vividly. Something like March seventeenth or something or something like that. When it when you first were briefed on it and you would have obviously heard about it earlier. Did you have any comprehension of sort of how seismic it was going to be? Was it was it clear? I mean, it's such uncharted water. I suppose. 

Boris Johnson
No, not at all. And you've got to understand, my instinct was very much to. You mean to be sceptical about it? And I you know, because I'd been through lots of these things before. So when I was a when I was standing for election included South in nineteen ninety seven, uh, BSE was a huge issue. Whether whether human beings could contract, um, bovine spongiform encephalopathy from, from cows. Right. Yeah. Uh, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Right. And there were, there were professors who were saying that there were going to be so many casualties, we'd have to build hospices on street corners, right? And the crematoria would be working overtime. It's going to be absolute. Do you remember all this stuff? Yep. And it turned out to be complete utter bollocks. And then when I was mayor of London, we had a bird flu panic and we had to lay on stocks and we had to look for stocks of Tamiflu or whatever. And it turned out that Ken Livingstone, my predecessor, had actually got some right, but they'd all gone off. And so I had to explain to Londoners that, you know, we didn't we couldn't, you know, we didn't have time to get any more bloody Tamiflu. And then the thing blew through and it was fine. I mean, I don't know what the numbers were, but yeah, nothing happened. And so, um, when I heard about the another zoonotic plague, uh, this, this thing in China, um, my instincts were to be very cautious because, you know, I felt that we'd been here And I remember saying to the cabinet, I think right at the beginning, look, you know, just from my experience of the greatest damage in all this will be done by the government's attempts to protect people or to prevent this disease rather than by the disease itself. And, um, you know, I don't know how you look at it now, but it's certainly the case that the government's post-COVID, the government's attempts to, to manage the effects of the disease were unbelievably expensive and, and damaging. But then of course, we also had a lot of casualties. So I think, um. The short answer to your question is I, my instincts were to be cautious and sceptical of it, but I'm afraid that just was not. Yeah. Vindicated by events because. It was appreciably nastier than any of these things in swine flu or SARS or any of these things. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Foot and mouth. 

Boris Johnson
Foot and mouth. BSE. You know, we were all expecting them to do huge damage and they hadn't. Ebola. And then suddenly this thing really was hurting people and scaring them. And really, you know, and, and people are very wise human herd, very wise. They could tell this was bad. They could tell that their older relatives were really going to be in trouble with this thing. Yeah. Yeah. And so they wanted protecting and they and they wanted the government to take control of it and to protect them. And if you look at the history. So go back beyond our lifetimes to previous. British or English state handling of of plagues, because we're not really used to it in the modern era. But if you look back to the to what they used to do in the, you know, the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth centuries, actually, there really were a lot of rules, right? And the interesting thing is how closely we, we echoed, right, the habits of previous governments that had to manage really lethal plagues. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, of course, Covid wasn't as bad as the bubonic plague wasn't as lethal as it wasn't as nasty, but it did kill a lot of people. And we did have a very large, vulnerable elderly population. Yeah. Yeah. And so people now have sort of forgotten the fear. Yeah. And they've forgotten how anxious they were about their relatives. Yeah. And there's much people are very blasé now. It was all crazy. Lockdown was crazy. Well, they weren't saying that at the time because I looked at the polls and there was overwhelming support for for locking down and the people said, no, no, no, I always thought it was... actually, um, and I, you know, I hated it, I hated the idea of it, but people wanted it because they wanted to see their own. They trusted themselves to behave responsibly, but they weren't sure that their neighbours were going to. 

Kingsley Wheaton
That was interesting. 

Boris Johnson
And so they said, well, you don't have to lock me down, but you have to lock him down. Yeah. And then all those people living in that home of multiple occupation. Occupation next door. Yes. 

Kingsley Wheaton
And was it a big weight, you know, that that that sort of liberty libertarian clashing with the necessary role of state did that.

Boris Johnson
It was terrible. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Absolutely, you described it as a nightmare. 

Boris Johnson
It was a total nightmare because. First of all, I began sceptically. I was I had to realize that I was wrong. First, I had to realize I was wrong with my initial scepticism was wrong. Then I had to start doing things that went completely against all my principles. Actually incarcerating the British population in their own homes. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Yeah, quite a big call. 

Boris Johnson
Just extraordinary. Extraordinary. Extraordinary. And, um, you know, we've never done, uh, we've never done anything like it. I mean, not in my in my lifetime. I've seen nothing like it. And, you know, the rules about the numbers of people, how close you could be to. It's just insane. And I think, you know, looking back. Yeah. And I, you know, I hope that future governments, if and when we get this again, will learn some lessons. And I think we were far too elaborate, too ornate in the way that we try to control people. It was mad. And I think we should try again. We should try to do more by personal responsibility and so on. But I'm just telling you, it was not it was not easy at the time. It really was not easy. 

Kingsley Wheaton
You know, the mantra was follow the science, wasn't it? I mean, presumably, 

Boris Johnson
what was the science? 

Kingsley Wheaton
What was the science? 

Boris Johnson
That was the scientists. The scientists didn't know what caused the disease. They didn't know. Sorry. They didn't know where it had come from. They didn't. They did not know for really quite a long time how it was transmitted. Was it aerosol? Was it by human contact? 

Kingsley Wheaton
Of course it was. All of that. I'd forgotten. 

Boris Johnson
They didn't know. They didn't know whether it could be transmitted asymptomatically or not, which is a crucial piece of information. Crucial. They didn't know whether face masks actually made any difference or not. Yeah. They didn't. There's just so many things they didn't know. Yeah. And so we follow the science. The scientists were all over the place. Yeah, yeah. And I'm afraid you just had to. You had to take a decision and lead. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Yeah, that was exactly. And that was another question I was going to ask because at the same time, simultaneously, you're leading the country, you know, your party, you know, your cabinet, there's all these different leadership dimensions. In the middle of all of that. It must be you are inordinately challenging. 

Boris Johnson
Well, yeah, but I mean, I yes, yes and no. Yeah. I mean, yeah, um, I hate to say it, but you know. I didn't find that particularly. I didn't find that particularly difficult. What I find what I find difficult because what I find, what I find difficult was being absolutely certain we were doing the right thing. Yeah. I find that, you know, once I'd made a decision, um, it was fine, but what I can't, I couldn't stand was just the anxiety about locking down. So. So once I knew we had something good, I was. That I could deliver, I was happy. Yeah. So as soon as we had a vaccine. Yes. Fantastic. Then I'm in my element. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Then there's a plan. 

Boris Johnson
There's a plan. It's like when I was mayor. Yeah. The the problem is apathy, inertia, bureaucracy, whatever. Five by five. I'm used to solving all those problems. Then you drive it. So we did have an incredibly fast vaccine rollout because we had a we had we approved the vaccines very fast. That's right. Actually, thanks to Brexit, at least in part. And we really galvanised the NHS and the whole country to to vaccinate themselves, vaccinate each other. That's right. And so the result was that we came out of lockdown about eight or nine months faster than most other European countries, which has a massive economic benefit. Yeah. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Without storming into the Netherlands, I read. 

Boris Johnson
Yeah. No. Well that's right. Well that was a bit. Yeah. That's right. Because they were so the our friends Emmanuel and Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel were I mean, they were very pissed off because we were vaccinating much faster than them. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Yeah, I remember that. 

Boris Johnson
By March twenty twenty one, we had vaccinated, um, I think forty five percent of the adult population of the country and like one hundred percent of those over eighty and, and those who are clinically vulnerable. Mhm. The comparable figure in the, in the EU was about eight or nine percent. So it was way, way, way below. Um, and they knew it and they were furious. I remember Ursula von der Leyen saying, you must not say this is because of Brexit, you know. No. Um, but it was at least partly because. And and she was very, she was very, very she offended. And so they, they then discovered that they had about five million doses of AstraZeneca, which were intended for our system. Right? Yes. But they were in a warehouse in Leiden, in Holland, and they sat on them. I mean, it was unbelievable. It was pure dog in the manger stuff, right? Right. They decided to. Yeah. You know, 

Kingsley Wheaton
Retain them. 

Boris Johnson
Yeah. And by the way, this was a vaccine that Macron himself had denounced as quasi ineffective. Right? Okay. And yeah, and Merkel hadn't been too flattering about it either. She then did later have AstraZeneca. Mhm. And it was incredibly infuriating, actually. And I have never been. So I was really very angry because, you know, I could see it was pure politics. They just they didn't really want the vaccines themselves. They weren't essential for their own purposes because, you know, as I say, they, they were quite um. Deprecating about AstraZeneca, but they were damned if they were going to see them helping to accelerate our program even faster. Yes. It went fast. It went fast. And um. And I think. You know, looking back on it. I'm happiest when I have a project that I absolutely can deliver. And, and, you know, we know what we're doing. We're rolling it out. Yeah. The problem with the problem with the initial stages of the pandemic was it just went so deeply against my instincts. Um, it wasn't, it wasn't easy. 

Kingsley Wheaton
We had, um, we had Will Greenwood, the English rugby player recently on, on this. And he talks about the fact that, you know, there are good decisions and bad decisions, but the worst of all is no decision.

Boris Johnson
Completely right. 

Kingsley Wheaton
And I thought that was a really interesting concept, actually. 

Boris Johnson
I would say that's one piece of advice I would give everybody. You know, you one thing you are paid to do as a leader is lead. And you know, you cannot just that you have to have a direction. And that's partly why I feel so frustrated about the country now. You know, I think we need to stop. We need to get on with things. You get growth, you get optimism, you get investment. You know. You know, Britain would have a story to tell again. Yes. Yes. It's fragile. Yeah. You have to have a vision. You have to have a plan. 

Kingsley Wheaton
I couldn't have you on here without asking about the tobacco and vapes. Boris, you said describe the tobacco and vapes bill as absolutely nuts and mad. 

Boris Johnson
Did I?

Kingsley Wheaton
And just just for the viewers, of course, this is partly to mean beyond a certain date, you won't be able to buy tobacco and nicotine products. 

Boris Johnson
Is this true? 

Kingsley Wheaton
Well, that's what the generational sales ban argues it's in its. 

Boris Johnson
Has it gone through?

Kingsley Wheaton
It's not passed? It's in the House of Lords, I think at the moment, 

Boris Johnson
Terrible, absolutely insane how the hell it's supposed to work. I did attack it at the time and I don't like it much. Um, to be perfectly honest with you, but that's probably just a generational thing. And, you know, I wouldn't honestly. Would I encourage people to smoke? No!

Kingsley Wheaton
Of course not. 

Boris Johnson
Um, absolutely not. But would I ban people from having a cigar, you know, once a year? No, I think I wrote a column about this attacking it and then yeah, I did. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Yeah, yeah. You said something like, I think the gist of what you were saying with smoking rates falling as fast as they are, is that by the time this is enacted, the problem won't be a problem anymore anyway, because, you know, the smoking rates amongst the young adult cohort are so low. Can I just ask you about. Yeah. You know, obviously, um, our business is governed by World Health Organization framework? Yes. You know, the US has pulled its funding. Yes. Pretty down on, you know, global institutions, NGOs. Do you see a sort of reshuffling of the deck in terms of sort of that world order? Or again, is that is that temporary? Well sabre rattling. 

Boris Johnson
I don't know. Um I think. The the W.H.O. is already the World Health Organization already. You know, I remember being a bit worried about it in the context of Covid where, um, they were quite reluctant at first to point the finger at China for the origins of Covid because of their relationship with China. Um, you know. You have to be very careful how you have to look at where these organizations are coming from, whether it's all strictly health related. Mhm. I mean, the alcohol situation really interests me. Why are we so why are all these pubs being, being, you know, closed? You know, why are they trying to raise the drink drive or lower the threshold for for drink driving now? 

Kingsley Wheaton
Is it ideology, dogma? 

Boris Johnson
I think it might be. Yeah. Leave it alone. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Quick fire round. Either or. You're supposed to choose one or the other. Some guests cheat. 

Boris Johnson
That's fine. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Scrabble or monopoly? 

Boris Johnson
Monopoly. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Okay. Wine or beer? 

Boris Johnson
Wine.

Kingsley Wheaton
Sun or sand? 

Boris Johnson
Sun or sand. Um. Sun 

Kingsley Wheaton
Feet up or a good walk. 

Boris Johnson
Feet up. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Okay. Weetabix or corn flakes. 

Boris Johnson
Corn flakes. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Okay. Very good. Eaton or Oxford? 

Boris Johnson
Oh, I think. It's a terrible choice. I refuse to choose. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Okay. Time alone or time with friends. 

Boris Johnson
Oh, God. Um. Uh, I think time with friends, probably. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Okay. Tennis or a bike ride? Well, given what you said earlier. I suspect the answer is bike ride. I'm not sure. 

Boris Johnson
Oh, no. Tennis. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Tennis. Okay, I'm not going to ask you the last one. We'll leave it there. Well, mayor or Prime Minister, but that's perhaps. 

Boris Johnson
Oh, right. Right. No. Prime Minister was the best Prime minister was was the job I think about most. And, you know, um that was a great job, but difficult. Difficult for reasons we've gone into in this excellent podcast. It's too difficult now. If we need to make it simpler, it needs to be imperial. Yes. We can't have these pesky back benchers. Yeah. This is the problem. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Avoid no decisions. 

Boris Johnson
These decisions, more decisions and less and less chance of rebellion. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Boris, thank you so much. I've loved our conversation. 

Boris Johnson
Thank you. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Thank you for coming in. 

Boris Johnson
Thanks, Kingsley, very much.

These transcripts are AI-generated and may contain errors or inaccuracies and should not be relied upon.