Media attacks on Boris Johnson continue. As far as I can tell nothing so far has really stuck, and by now all the ballot papers must have been posted so he is going to be Prime Minister anyway.<\/p>\n
I have heard it said that “Boris once had a journalist beaten up”. It turns out that is not the story at all<\/a>. We can hear some of the phone call<\/a>. Boris’s version of events is that a friend called who wanted the journalist’s details so that he could have him beaten up, and Boris merely humoured the friend by saying he would find out his address, not knowing the private phone call was being recorded. I have seen plenty of people claiming that Boris did in fact hand over the journalist’s details, but no evidence of such. He once made light of it<\/a> on Have I Got News for You. There does not seem to be any wrongdoing here.<\/p>\n Online commentary suggests his prank call by Vovan & Lexus made him look foolish and incompetent. Having listened to the entire call<\/a>, it seems that while he believed the call to be genuine, he shows nothing more than professional courtesy to the callers. He realises something is up towards the end of the call, when he says, “thank-you for that interesting tidbit of information”. This is British for, “you are obviously talking nonsense”. Amusingly enough<\/a>,<\/p>\n prankster Vladimir Kuznetsov said he and his partner were surprised that Johnson turned out to be “a smart diplomat, an intellectual.”<\/p>\n He added it was “the first time we spoke to someone who is not an idiot.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n