Talking for Britain: Johnson’s oratorical juggernaut proves unstoppable

BORIS JOHNSON is unstoppable. Verbally, at any rate. He point-blank refuses to be interrupted. He goes on talking and talking, regardless of whether what he’s saying bears any relation to the question. Interruptions bounce off him, like peas fired against the hull of a tank.

Yesterday, before the Foreign Affairs select committee, Nadhim Zahawi (Con, Stratford-on-avon) asked what he saw as the UK’S key strategic priorities. Mr Johnson thanked him – then launched into a lengthy written statement that had nothing to do with strategic priorities, key or otherwise.

After about a minute of this, Tom Tugendhat, the committee’s chairman, tried feebly to intervene, protesting that time was short, and could he please just answer Mr Zahawi. To no avail. Mr Johnson rode over him. The committee sat in helpless silence.

You would hardly guess him to be an overwhelming oratorical force. He looks almost shy, with his air of absent-minded dishevelment, and his eyes peeping out sheepishly from under the chaos of his fringe. Yet when he’s under interrogation, there’s no mistaking who’s in charge.

After six solid minutes, Mr Johnson stopped talking. “Thank you, Foreign Secretary,” murmured Mr Tugendhat. “Could we perhaps move along from the written statement, and on to the question Mr Zahawi asked…?”

Graciously, Mr Johnson consented. He took questions from other MPS, too. Virtually every answer was a speech. Repeatedly, the committee tried to pin him down on our future relationship with the EU, in regard to security. They had little luck. “We want to be, as it were, a flying buttress,” burbled Mr Johnson, “supportive of the EU kirk, but not particularly fussy about exactly how the masonry interlocks…”

As he powered remorselessly on, I found myself recalling the scene in Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall, in which a beleaguered schoolmaster set his unruly class to work by offering “a prize of half a crown for the longest essay, irrespective of any possible merit”. In that class, one suspects, Mr Johnson would have made a mint.