WITH the UK focused on partygate and Boris Johnson’s most recent controversies, we thought it might be time to take a trip down memory lane and recall a little-known incident involving the Prime Minister.
We’ve reported countless times on Johnson publishing a poem calling Scots vermin in the Spectator, or suggesting that a pound is worth more when spent in London than Strathclyde.
You all know well that he supposedly called devolution a disaster, and wants to undo it all according to Dominic Cummings.
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But do you remember him trying to secure a No vote – by teaching a group of London school pupils some Latin?
It’s the kind of result you might get if you put Boris Johnson’s name into an AI-text-generator. But it’s true.
Days before the 2014 referendum, Johnson, then London mayor, stood in front of pupils at Newham’s East London Science School and told them why Scotland needs to stay in the UK, while also teaching them the classical language.
“Londinienses amamus Caledoniam!” Johnson wrote on the whiteboard.
“Nolite nos relinquere!”
It means Londoners love Scotland – don’t leave us.
We wonder what those students thought at the time, and whether the lesson ever came in handy for them …
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It’s good to know what your opposition has up their sleeve, especially as momentum builds towards a 2023 indyref.
Thankfully, we don’t think this Latin tactic was too effective – and we can’t see them using it again.
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Callum Baird, Editor of The National
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