Boris: "I want to assume supreme power in England"

[muriel_volestrangler]

He was hawking a book in New York:

So far, for Johnson, it’s working. He’s already the biggest ­celebrity politician in the U.K., and will likely be even more so after serving as maître d’ of the Olympics, with their Britsh-idyll opening ceremony featuring rolling meadows, 70 grazing sheep, fake clouds to generate rainy authenticity, and Sir Paul McCartney. Many think he’ll be called on to replace David Cameron as Conservative Party leader and perhaps even prime minister (the two have known each other since school, and are supposed to not get along; Johnson joked he won reelection “despite” Cameron’s endorsement). For what it’s worth, he thinks Europe needs to just dump the euro. “Better an end with horror than horror without end,” he says, deploying a German proverb associated with the last days of the First World War.

But since the mayor of London has no power over that, or much of anything other than housing and urban transit, for now he’s determined to achieve post-Olympian immortality with buses (he brought back the old hop-on hop-off double-decker bus), trains (a multibillion-dollar commuter-rail expansion), and, he hopes, a gigantic new airport in the Thames estuary. “London is the most commercially important city in Europe, and it’s the most populous city,” he says. “It should be for the whole of the European continent what New York is to America. That’s what it should be. And in many ways it is. We have to have a new airport. One of the only reasons I want to assume supreme power in England is to make sure that happens.” Pause. “For God’s sake, don’t quote me saying that.”

http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/encounter/boris-johnson-2012-6/

[non sociopath skin]

1. There's a good Dr. Who episode in there somewhere.

The Skin

[LeftishBrit]

2. Sounds like something out of an unusually awful Cold War-era thriller...

especially with his name being Boris.