Best in show: the PM’S party hits

Boris Johnson has always attracted a certain magnetism in speeches to the conferences’ gathered faithful – and some particularly bizarre moments have lodged themselves into the Westminster consciousness...

2014 THE STAGE PROP A brick

The Tory Party was in a sombre mood at its conference in 2014, following defections to Ukip. Mr Johnson tried to boost spirits by producing a brick during his speech. “Behold this brick, amigos,” he said, raising it into the air. “This brick was given to me yesterday in Newcastle under Lyme, in a factory that only started last year and is now capable of making 80 million of these objects a year.” He was making an optimistic point about Britain’s building potential – but all anybody remembered was the brick.

2015 THE QUIP ‘Toxic moonshine’

Mr Johnson was pelted with plastic balls on his way to the Tory conference in 2015; but inside the hall, he was met with laughter. He described Jeremy Corbyn’s brand of socialism as a “toxic moonshine that sends you blind ... give that hooch a miss”. He also praised his great grandfather, an immigrant who fled Turkey in fear for his life “to Wimbledon for some reason. He was then assassinated by his political opponents – a fate I intend to avoid.”

2017 THE HAUNTING Back to the Seventies

The Tory conference in 2017 is best remembered for Theresa May losing her voice on stage, and being handed a fake P-45 letter by a professional prankster. But in his own speech, Mr Johnson highlighted the dangers of 1970s-style socialism: “Unfortunately, going back to the 1970s sounds to too many people like a massive joint revival concert by David Bowie, Led Zep and the Rolling Stones.” But people tend to forget power cuts, three-day weeks, and “State-made British Rail sandwiches”, he added. Elsewhere in the speech, he criticised pessimistic Remainers who pushed the idea that Britain was “going to bottle out of Brexit and end up in some dingy ante-room of the EU, pathetically waiting for the scraps but no longer in control of the menu”.

2019 THE TALKING POINT Kangaroo testicles

At the Tory conference in Manchester in 2019, Mr Johnson bemoaned Parliament’s inability to break through the Brexit logjam. “If Parliament were a reality TV show, the whole lot of us would have been voted out of the jungle by now,” he told his amused audience. “At least we could have watched the Speaker being forced to eat a kangaroo testicle.” Watching from the audience was Mr Johnson’s father, Stanley, who two years earlier had competed on ITV’S I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!

2019 ANOTHER STAGE PROP Smoked kipper

Earlier that year, Mr Johnson was addressing a hustings event for the party leadership when he bent down on stage and picked up a smoked kipper, sent from a trader in the Isle of Man. “He has had his costs massively increased by Brussels bureaucrats, who have insisted that each kipper must be accompanied by a plastic ice pillow,” Mr Johnson roared, holding the fish aloft, to the delight of the audience.

By Luke Mintz