PM’s Columbus quip ‘nicked’ from 2005 speech

A joke in Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s keynote conference address yesterday in Manchester was reportedly copied from a speech by a former Conservative minister.

He referred to Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer as “Captain Hindsight”, joking that if Columbus had listened to him, “he’d be famous for discovering Tenerife.”

Hugo Rifkind, a columnist for The Times and son of Sir Malcolm Rifkind who served in various roles as a Cabinet minister under both Margaret Thatcher and John Major’s premierships, has said the quip was stolen from his father’s speech.

He said via Twitter: “Oh, btw. Johnson’s line about Starmer, “who if he’d advised Columbus would only have got as far as Tenerife” is nicked from my dad’s speech in 2005 (although he said “mid-Atlantic” about the Lib Dems, which is funnier) and I think HE nicked it from Charles Kennedy in about 1997.”

He joked: ”It’s nice that the new Green Tories are into recycling, etc”.