Name: Boris Johnson Says He'll Never Be Prime Minister | Letterman
Uploaded: 2022-07-07T23:30:38.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Boris Johnson Says He'll Never Be Prime Minister | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-07-07. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Boris Johnson Says He'll Never Be Prime Minister | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-07-07. Transcript available.

Paul, guess who we have now?
You know, we often talk about Mayor Bloomberg,
who is in his fifth or sixth term.
The only public figure who's been in office longer than Bloomberg is Santa.
Santa.
But guess who we have tonight?
We have the mayor of the great city of London.
Wow, really?
Yeah, and do you ever think about the mayor of London?
I surely don't.
No.
Well, he's here.
Looking forward to seeing him.
Yeah, and he has a book.
He's recently re-elected to his second term as mayor of London.
He's the author of this book entitled Johnson's Life of London.
Please welcome your London mayor, the Honorable Boris Johnson.
Welcome to New York City.
Welcome to the show.
Thank you very much for being here.
It's a great honor.
I'm a fervent admirer of your work.
Well, I find that hard to believe, but thank you.
That's true.
I watched it for many years.
Let me ask you this.
To not love London...
This is Jane Fonda.
Yeah, go ahead.
I've been all over that.
To not love London is to not love life.
Who said that?
It was Samuel Johnson.
Well, he said, he who is tired of London is tired of life.
So it's a variation on the same thing.
That's right.
Is that true today in modern London?
I think London has...
And he said, because for any man or woman who is a tall intellectual, London
has all that
life can afford.
I think that is true.
I'm delighted that you mentioned this book.
My purpose is to celebrate London, to encourage people to come to the city, and
to proclaim the
genius of London.
What is the population of London?
The population of London is about 7.8 million.
Is it rising or lowering?
It is growing.
There's a huge phylo-progenitive instinct in the people of London.
Wow.
What did you say?
I'm sorry.
What did you say?
What was that?
London is, in fact, unlike any other major European city, in that the
population is growing.
That's right.
To put it more simply.
I remember being in Paris not long ago, and they said just the opposite is
happening in
Paris.
So expensive that people are leaving the city.
And in order to cope with the demands, we have to build more homes.
We have to put in an ever-better transportation system, as people will discover.
Let me ask you about the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.
Do you know the Queen?
I've met her.
Better.
I've met her.
She has a very lively sense of humor.
And I liked your summary of the Diamond Jubilee that you did just now.
I thought that was...
Well, you're the one.
It was good.
But you left out...
You had hat, boat, hat, boat.
You left out the rain.
And the rain was a critical ingredient.
What I think, and I heard someone say this, was one of the greatest aquatic
triumphs of
the British people since Trafalgar.
And it was like a kind of version of Dunkirk, except with a much jollier
outcome.
Yes, much jollier.
Now, who pays for the Diamond Jubilee?
Does the City of London pay for it?
Does the Royal Family pay for it?
Well, as you know, I try to get everything sponsored.
And you may have heard in this country, there's a very famous and distinguished
banker called
Bob Diamond.
And I said that, you know, if he would consent to sponsor, then we'd call it
the Diamond Jubilee.
And that was...
How did that go?
That was...
That was...
I'm making that up, by the way.
Of course.
Just for the avoidance of Diamond.
I know.
He's a very generous guy, Bob Diamond, but he didn't...
I have to explain a lot of my jokes, too.
Yeah, okay.
Now, here, something I found fascinating...
He runs Barclays, which I think has a presence here.
We know what you're talking about.
Just settle down.
You were born in New York.
I was born in New York.
Now, so, doesn't that make you...
It does.
A fact I try to conceal from the electorate of London.
But doesn't that make you an American citizen?
It does.
And it does.
Hang on.
A jointly an American citizen.
This will be broadcast in London.
Oh.
And I wish to make it absolutely clear that my parents are British.
I happened...
I was born here.
I wanted to be close to my mother at the time.
And that was where she was.
How old were you when you moved back to London?
I was five.
Five years old.
Do you remember much of that time in New York?
Not so much in New York, because we moved to Washington and Connecticut and
around.
But I remember America.
I remember it vividly.
And, you know, I have a lifelong...
Is this too corny to say?
I mean, it's a most wonderful, most wonderful country.
And, of course, perhaps I can correct that.
It's a glutinous sentiment by saying I regard America as the proudest creation
of London.
After all, it's...
It was the ideas.
It was...
I can get away.
It was the ideals of liberty and democracy and habeas corpus and freedom of
speech
that grew up in 18th century London, which were transmitted, would you not say?
You're fine.
I just...
You're among friends.
Everything's fine.
Okay.
Thank you.
And the Olympics coming up, the big summer for London.
That'll be fantastic, won't it?
Are the facilities ready to go?
It's all going to be fantastic.
Yeah.
It's all...
And, you know, you're almost welcome to come.
I would love to come.
I would love to come, but I know...
Can you do a show from London?
We did, years and years ago, did shows from London.
Well, now this is the year.
To do it again?
Yeah.
I can't travel.
I just saw your doctor give you a clean bill of health.
In spite of your impaired cognitive faculty.
Yeah, right.
I remember the first time I was in London was 1972, and I thought, whoa, this
is lovely.
What a wonderful...
And it seemed like it had not yet been touched by American commerce.
You didn't see McDonald's.
You didn't see Piggly Wiggly.
You didn't see...
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, I think we were pretty poor back then.
I think things weren't going so well for the economy.
Yeah, and things have got much better now.
Tell people what you've done for the transportation system of your city.
Well, as I hope people will discover if they come this summer, there has been a
massive investment
in the tube network.
We've put air conditioning on 40% of the tube lines, which is good because we've
got a very
old system.
We've got a massive new fast cross-town system called Crossrail coming in.
We've got a wonderful new bus.
We've restored to the streets of London the hop-on, hop-off.
That's what I remember.
Do you remember?
You could get drunk and fall over backwards.
That's right.
And that was banned in the name of health and safety, and we've now restored
that property.
But talk about the bicycle thing, which I believe is coming to New York City.
That's entirely correct.
Well, how does that work?
I'm a great fan of your mayor, Mike Bloomberg.
Well, he's taking the fun out of Fun City.
No, no, I'm a big amaranth.
Could you ban giant sodas in London?
You know, we're not as...
We are...
I mean, I may weigh more than Mike, but as a city, we are not quite as fat as
the...
If I can put this...
I mean, not yet.
Not yet.
I mean, I've got to be honest about this.
We're not there yet.
What I...
Why can't you have a rule that you've got to put more ice in it?
Yeah, fine.
You're talking to the wrong guy.
I don't know what to tell you.
Yeah.
But now let's get back to the bicycle thing.
I love this.
They're free bikes.
Yeah.
It's a communist scheme.
You ride it across town.
It's a communist scheme.
You drop it off, you pick another one up, ride it back home.
That's right.
It's an entirely communist scheme put in by a conservative mayor, and it works
beautifully well.
How many bikes do you have on the streets?
Uh, we've got more than 6,000, I believe, now.
And it's the same thing as coming here to New York City.
That's fantastic.
That's right.
That's right.
And, uh, I congratulate, uh, Mike Bloomberg on wall.
I mean, I hesitate to endorse, I once, I once, last time he was standing for
election,
I came here, and he was in a, you know, in quite a tough fight, it turned out,
and I, I asked
him whether it would be at all useful to him for me to endorse him.
Right.
And, and he thought about this for a while, and then he said, on the whole, he'd
much
prefer it if I resoundingly endorsed his opponent.
He thought that would be, he thought that would be rude.
You don't need to take that.
You're a big, important man.
Yeah.
Anyway, but I saw, I'm a supporter nonetheless.
Yes.
And, uh, so, uh, um, and how long have you been cutting your own hair?
I just, I just wanted, I mean, I think that was a low blur.
I think that was a low blur.
It's not good.
I think that was a low blur.
It's not good.
Look at mine.
Yours is true.
I thought, I was beginning to think I'd got through this more or less unscathed.
Yeah.
You had.
You'd mentioned the book quite a few times.
Yes.
No, I think it's a lovely thing.
And look, and look, here you are in your bicycles.
There you are, right there.
There you go.
And, and will you run, you just reelected, how many terms can you serve as
mayor?
Well, I've, I've, this will be my second term.
It is my, and I, and I've said, uh, a fact, I, and I regret, I've said that
I won't, I won't run more than, that's it.
Yeah.
So is there a possibility you could become prime minister?
Uh, I, I think that that is vanishing.
I mean, I've about as much chance of, of being, you know, reincarnated as an
olive.
Why would you say that?
Because politics is nothing if not ambition.
Or, or being blinded by a champagne one.
But it's nothing if not ambition.
Why, why couldn't you think about being prime minister?
You could if you wanted to.
Well, I suppose I could, I could.
I mean, as you've already pointed out, I could be president of the United
States.
Yeah, well, I, you know.
You know, there's, there's no, you know, technically speaking.
But, you know, there, there, there, there, I think there, there are limits to
the credulity
of our audience.
You know, that's, that's, that's, that's what I would say.
You think the hair is holding you back?
Honestly.
You know, until you mentioned it, until you mentioned it tonight, I'd never, I'd
never,
I'd never, I'd never regarded it as a, as a, as a drawback.
All right.
Well, it's a wonderful city and it's going to be a wonderful summer.
Even without the Olympics, it would be a wonderful summer.
It would be.
It rains all summer in London, doesn't it?
It, it, it rains more in Rome.
Is that a fact?
It rains more in Rome.
There you go.
It rains more in Rome.
What's that like?
Here's the book, ladies and gentlemen, Mayor Boris Johnson.
It's Johnson's Life of London.
There you have it.
That's the man.
Great pleasure to meet you, Your Honor.
Thank you very much.