Prime Minister Boris Johnson

• WE should be delighted that our prime minister is writing a book on Shakespeare, knowing that King Lear refuses to hear any objectionable truths from anyone except The Fool.

So could he analyse the following nine Shakespeare quotes?

• ‘in the end truth will out’.

• ‘The storm is up, and all is on the hazard.’

• ‘He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.’

• ‘Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise,
Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affection,
Figures pedantical.’

• ‘His own opinion was his law: i’ th’ presence
He would say untruths, and be ever double
Both in his words and meaning.’

• ‘in the corrupted currents of this world
Offence’s, gilded hand may shove by justice,
And oft’ tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law.’

• ‘Dressed in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he’s most assured.’

• ‘England… is now bound in with shame.’

• ‘Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump’.

MIKE BOR
St George’s Fields, W2