How Boris Johnson boasted of dodging multiple parking tickets

From the Oxford Mail in 2007:

In Life in the Fast Lane: The Johnson Guide to Cars, published this week, Mr Johnson wrote that he just let the parking tickets pile up until they disintegrated in the rain on the windscreen of his old Fiat 128 – dubbed the Italian Stallion – as it had Belgian licence plates.

In Life in the Fast Lane: The Johnson Guide to Cars, he writes: “A Fiat 128 two-door saloon, 1.2 litres, the Italian Stallion was the trusty steed that emancipated me from the shackles of childhood.

“Before traffic wardens became bonus-hungry maniacs, and when it was still rare for a student to own any kind of car at all, I parked all over the place, my favourite spot in Oxford being the yellow lines by the squash courts in Jowett Walk.

“Sometimes, it is true, I got a ticket. But what did I care? The Stallion had Belgian plates.

“I let them pile in drifts against the windscreen until – in the days before they were even sheathed in plastic – the fines just disintegrated in the rain.”

As ever, Boris Johnson’s attitude is that it’s one rule for him and another for all the rest of us.

Hat-tip: Michael White on Twitter.

Sign up to get the latest news and analysis