FROM GIRLY SWOTS TO PUFFED-UP POPINJAYS... BORIS ON HIS POLITICAL RIVALS

CHATEAUNEUF-DUCABAL

‘We fought to keep London from lurching back into the grip of a Marxist cabal of taxpayerfunded Chateauneuf-du-Papeswilling tax minimisers and bendy-bus fetishists.’

Speech at Conservative Party conference, October 9, 2012.

When he became Mayor of London, Boris claimed to have found bottles of the vintage red wine in a ‘secret cellar’ left by his Labour predecessor, Ken Livingstone.

Cabal, noun. Secret political clique of Left-wing hypocrites; from Kabbalah, meaning ‘reception’, the Jewish mystical interpretation of hebrew scripture. By the 17th century it came to mean a secretive political group.

DOBBY

‘Despite looking a bit like Dobby the House Elf, he is a ruthless and manipulative tyrant.’

On Vladimir Putin. Daily Telegraph, December 6, 2015.

‘Dobby’, the bald, floppy-eared, pointy-nosed house elf in J.K. Rowling’s harry Potter books.

GIRLY SWOT

‘The whole September session is a rigmarole introduced by girly swot Cameron to show the public that MPs were earning their crust.’

On the row over Johnson’s five-week suspension of Parliament to try to force Brexit through. Hand-written description of David Cameron in the margin of a Cabinet document, August 16, 2019.

Noun. Contemptuous term for someone who studies hard but is otherwise weak.

MUGWUMP

‘A mutton-headed old mugwump.’ Attack on then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, claiming he was a threat to national security. (Asked to say sorry for the phrase, Boris replied sarcastically: ‘I apologise to mugwumps everywhere.’) The Sun, May 4, 2017.

Noun. Mugwump: old, aloof. Originally from Algonquian Native American mug quomp, ‘great chief ’. In the harry Potter novels, Albus Dumbledore is ‘ Supreme Mugwump’; the word is also referenced in Roald Dahl’s Charlie And The Great Glass Elevator (‘my dear old muddle-headed mugwump’). Mutton-headed, stupid.

PUFFED-UP POPINJAY

‘We will not allow U.S.–UK relations to be endangered by some puffed-up pompous popinjay in City Hall.’

Attacking London Labour mayor Sadiq Khan, a prominent critic of Donald Trump. Twitter, January 12, 2018.

noun. A vain or conceited person; popinjay, archaic term for parrot, potentially derived from the old French/dutch papegai ‘parrot’.

SNAGGLE-TOOTHED LEFTIES

‘ Corduroy- jacketed, snaggletoothed, Lefty academics.’ Caricaturing British supporters of the Israel boycott. Speaking in Tel Aviv, November 11, 2015.

Adjective. Snaggle-toothed, having crooked, projecting teeth, from english. the phrase was in use as early as the 1580s.