Barry Soper: ZB senior political correspondent on his meeting with former Prime Minister Boris Johnson

Newstalk ZB's own Barry Soper spent the day with former Prime Minister Boris Johnson - and left hoping for more stories.

The former UK leader held a 'long lunch' in Auckland to promote his book Unleashed. 

Barry Soper described Johnson's speech as ' the slow unravel of a mohair jersey' - and wondered what would come of it.

"He dithered his way - I couldn't understand many of the things he was saying because he was dithering so much."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson reckons he would
not have lost to Labour's Keir Starmer. His own party
booted him out, of course, in favor of Liz trust
and then Reshi Sunak. But Boris Johnson told Kerry Woodham
this morning he won't take any of the blame.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Gone on and done some of the things that we
decided we were going to do together, some of the reforms,
some of the tax cutting as we got to the
end of the parliament, some of the free market stuff
we were going to do. With Brexit, I think we
would have wiped the floor with Starmer.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Senior political correspondent Barry Soper, It's just back from a
long lunch with Boris.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Hi, Barry, how was it that afternoon, Jack? It was fascinating.
Actually he called Sekirs Starmer pol Pott, which I thought
was a bit tough. At the luncheon, this is wow.
And when I was sitting there looking at the several
hundred people packed into the cords that enormous room, paying

(00:51):
between five hundred and two thousand dollars a plate, I thought,
this is incredible. How a British prime minister who owned
he was the prime minister for a couple of years
was able to pull in such a very, very large
crowd as for a special I think the best line
actually came when Winston Peters spoke before him, and those

(01:14):
two are quite close. They both met as foreign ministers
in the past, and Winston Peters made note when he
was at the podium saying Boris. He said his impression
of Boris as that he is a man that's just
come out of the shower and used the towel as
his hair brush. And I think there was a pretty
good description on Boris's hair was all over the place,

(01:36):
and he kept fluffing it up during the speech. But
the speech went on for a long time, and to me,
it was sort of like a slow unravel of a
mowhir jersey. He never quite knew when the next stitch
was going to be undone that he dithered, dithered his way.

(01:57):
I couldn't understand many of the things he was saying
because he was dithering so much, and it says speech pattern.
But I'll tell you what, even though purely politically, I
was a bit disappointed because I probably expected more. I
wanted more stories and they no doubt in his book Unleashed,

(02:17):
but I wanted more stories about him himself. He talked
about the Ukraine, and of course he said that the
Germans and the French were weak on the Ukraine at
the start. And Boris, of course, his foreign minister, was
there several times. He talked about two days he was
before the Queen died. He was having his prime ministerial

(02:39):
audience with the Queen, and I think people really liked that,
and it was very reverential of the Queen, but you know,
the speech itself didn't really enlighten the crowd that much.
The interview afterwards was done by Paul Henry, and I
dare I say it lovely Kerry, who interviewed him here

(03:00):
in the studio this morning, had the same trouble that
Paul Henry had. Couldn't get a word in edgeways, you know,
And I thought, Paul Henry will be being paid for this,
So it was a very easy earn because he didn't
get a hell of a lot of questions. And the
laughter during the interview was the fact that Paul Henry

(03:23):
dear he was trying to interrupt Boris to move the
interview along, and it was quite funny, but it was
the interview that aspect of it I found the most informative,
because you know, he had calmed down from speaking. And
you've got to remember, this man is on the international
speaking circuit and the last figure that I looked that

(03:44):
in the two years he's been out of the Prime
Minister's job, he's earned a five million pound ten million
dollars since he's been on the circuit, So you can
imagine how much he made out of that speech at
the Cords this afternoon.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
So did you get any sense from his presentation that
he's going to have another go at politics.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
No, well you couldn't get a word in edge. I'll
tell you what though, Jack, I'm having lunch with them
tomorrow with a small group. Maybe after this oh my god,
my lunch and invitation will be canceled. But there's a
small group of us going to lunch with him tomorrow,
So hopefully, although it is Chathamhouse rules, but I'm sure

(04:30):
he will he'll be amenable if he is thinking of
running again to maybe dropping a hint. But look, he's
really entertaining character. I wouldn't have missed it for Quiz.
I think the best aspect of it for me was
the number of politicos that had Turner. John Key was there,
Jerry Brownlee was there, Coss Winston spoke. So it was

(04:53):
a great turnout of politicos. And you know, I'm a junkie,
so I really enjoyed that aspect. Dot.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
Yeah, well, I hope you enjoy the rerun tomorrow as well.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
I hope you get a word.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
It sounds like great fun. We really appreciate you coming
in after that. Senior political correspondent, very sofa with us
this evening.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
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