Mayors Of London

"And then there is the whole geostrategic anxiety. Britain is a great nation, a global force for good. It is surely a boon for the world and for Europe that she should be intimately engaged in the EU. This is a market on our doorstep, ready for further exploitation by British firms: the membership fee seems rather small for all that access."

"There is only one way to get the change we need - and that is to vote to go; because all EU history shows that they only really listen to a population when it says no."

"They want us to go to the polls in such a state of quivering apprehension that we do the bidding of the Euro-elites, and vote to stay in the European Union."

"Leaving the EU would be a win-win for all. The EU costs us a huge amount of money and subverts our democracy"

"[The UK is] big enough and strong enough to stand on its own"

"Would anyone in their right mind want to join the EU today?"

"You look at the plan to increase the efforts to prop up the single currency with an ever denser system of integration, with more and more regulation about all sorts of social and economic issues which will impact directly on this country, I think the risk is increasingly in staying in the project. I think the best thing we can do is show a lead, show an example and strike out for freedom."

"The EU is 50 years old, it is going in the wrong direction. It is time for real reform. The only way to get that is to leave."

"We will be informed by our most important ally that it is in our interests to stay in the EU, no matter how flawed we may feel that organisation to be. Never mind the loss of sovereignty; never mind the expense and the bureaucracy and the uncontrolled immigration. The American view is very clear."

"Something mysterious happened when Barack Obama entered the Oval Office in 2009. Something vanished from that room, and no one could quite explain why. It was a bust of Winston Churchill – the great British war time leader. It was a fine goggle-eyed object, done by the brilliant sculptor Jacob Epstein, and it had sat there for almost ten years. But on day one of the Obama administration it was returned, without ceremony, to the British embassy in Washington. No one was sure whether the President had himself been involved in the decision. Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan President's ancestral dislike of the British empire – of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender. Some said that perhaps Churchill was seen as less important than he once was. Perhaps his ideas were old-fashioned and out of date. Well, if that's why Churchill was banished from the Oval Office, they could not have been more wrong."

"There was a young fellow from Ankara Who was a terrific wankerer Till he sowed his wild oats With the help of a goat But he didn't even stop to thankera."

"Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically [...] The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods. But fundamentally what is lacking is the eternal problem, which is that there is no underlying loyalty to the idea of Europe. There is no single authority that anybody respects or understands. That is causing this massive democratic void."

"After we liberate ourselves from the shackles of Brussels we will be able to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs right across the UK."

"Take back control of huge sums of money, 350 million pounds a week, and spend it on our priorities such as the NHS."

"Oh shit, we've got no plan. We haven’t thought about it. I didn’t think it would happen. Holy crap, what will we do?"

"There is no need for haste about severing the UK's ties [with the EU]"

"[The UK is] no less united... nor indeed any less European [following the decision to leave the EU]."

"It is vital now to see this [Brexit] moment for what it is. This is not a time to quail, it is not a crisis, nor should we see it as an excuse for wobbling or self-doubt, but it is a moment for hope and ambition for Britain. A time not to fight against the tide of history, but to take that tide at the flood, and sail on to fortune."

"We can all spend an awfully long time going over lots of stuff that I've written over the last 30 years... all of which in my view have been taken out of context, but never mind... I'm afraid that there is such a rich thesaurus now of things that I have said that have been one way or another, through what alchemy I do not know, somehow misconstrued that it would take me too long to engage in a full global itinerary of apology to all concerned."

"If Monsieur Hollande wants to administer punishment beatings to anybody who chooses to escape, rather in the manner of some World War Two movie, then I don't think that is the way forward. I think, actually, it's not in the interests of our friends and our partners."

"I think Rex Tillerson is absolutely clear in his view, which is the same as mine. You have got to engage with Russia, but you have got to engage in a very guarded way. You have got to beware of what they are up to. There is no question that, when you look at Russian activity on the cyber front, when you look at what they are doing in the western Balkans, when you look at what has been happening in the Ukraine, you've got to be very, very cautious. I think it is entirely right to have a dual track approach. We don't want to get into a new Cold War. That's something London and Washington are completely at one on. But nor do we want Russian behaviour to continue as it is - and Rex Tillerson has been very clear about that."

"There is no plan for no deal because we are going to get a great deal,"

"There's a group of UK business people, wonderful guys who want to invest in , on the coast, near where Gaddafi was actually captured and executed as some of you may have seen. And they literally have a brilliant vision to turn Sirte, with the help of the municipality of Sirte, to turn it into the next . The only thing they've got to do is clear the dead bodies away and then they'll be there."

"[At a Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee meeting on 1 November 2017] When I look at what Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was doing, she was simply teaching people journalism, as I understand it. [Neither] Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe nor her family has been informed about what crime she has actually committed. And that I find extraordinary, incredible."

"[In the Commons on 7 November 2017, after criticism his earlier comments might make Zaghari-Ratcliffe's position worse] My point was that I disagreed with the Iranian view that training journalists was a crime - not that I wanted to lend any credence to Iranian allegations that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been engaged in such activity. I accept that my remarks could have been clearer in that respect, and I'm glad to provide this clarification."

"Ridiculous outcry over Toby Young. He will bring independence, rigour and caustic wit. Ideal man for job."

"It is often useful to give the slight impression that you are deliberately pretending not to know what is going on, because the reality may be that you don't know what is going on, but people won't be able to tell the difference."

"What we hate, what we fear, is being ignored."

"They are like glistening wet otters frolicking."

"The excitement is growing so much I think the Geiger counter of Olympo-mania is going to go zoink off the scale."

"I'm having Sunday lunch with my family. I'm vigorously campaigning, inculcating my children in the benefits of a Tory government."

"The Lib Dems are not just empty. They are a void within a vacuum surrounded by a vast inanition."

"When a regime has been in power too long, when it has fatally exhausted the patience of the people, and when oblivion finally beckons – I am afraid that across the world you can rely on the leaders of that regime to act solely in the interests of self-preservation, and not in the interests of the electorate. ... First-past-the-post has served this country well, and served dozens of other countries well. We would be mad to go to a great deal of trouble and expense to adopt a system that is less fair than the one we have. ... By all means let us have a referendum – the one we were promised, on the Lisbon EU Treaty."

"The meat in the sausage has got to be Conservative"

"Howard is a dynamic performer on many levels. There you are. He sent me to Liverpool. Marvellous place. Howard was the most effective Home Secretary since Peel. Hang on, was Peel Home Secretary?"

"In 1904, 20 per cent of journeys were made by bicycle in London. I want to see a figure like that again. If you can't turn the clock back to 1904, what's the point of being a Conservative?"

"And I hope that everybody who loves this city will put aside party differences to try in the making of Greater London greater still. Let's get cracking tomorrow and let's have a drink tonight."

"But here's old Ken - he's been crass, he's been insensitive and thuggish and brutal in his language - but I don't think actually if you read what he said, although it was extraordinary and rude, I don't think he was actually anti-Semitic."

"The dreadful truth is that when people come to see their MP, they have run out of better ideas."

"Yes, cannabis is dangerous, but no more than other perfectly legal drugs. It's time for a rethink, and the Tory party - the funkiest, most jiving party on Earth - is where it's happening."

"Where there are neglected opportunities we will seize on them, and we will focus on the priorities of the people of London: cutting crime, improving transport, protecting green space, delivering affordable housing, giving taxpayers value for money in every one of the 32 boroughs."

"We have a new team ready to go in to City Hall. Where there have been mistakes we will rectify them. Where there are achievements we will build on them."

"My friends, as I have discovered myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters."

"And as for those who voted for me, I know there will be many whose pencils hovered for an instant before putting an X in my box and I will work flat out to repay and to justify your confidence."

"I will work flat out from now on to earn your trust and to dispel some of the myths that have been created about me."

"Nothing excites compassion, in friend and foe alike, as much as the sight of you ker-splonked on the Tarmac with your propeller buried six feet under."

"I have as much chance of becoming Prime Minister as of being decapitated by a frisbee or of finding Elvis."

"I would like to thank first the vast multitudes who voted against me - and I have met quite a few in the last nine months, not all of them entirely polite."

"And that brings me to my final thank you which is of course to the people of London."

"I advise you all very strongly - go for a run, get some exercise, and have a beautiful day."