Free Seventy-Two Virgins by Boris Johnson

have liked.
    The policeman at the gate once more demanded production of the pink slip, though for some reason they waved Felix Thomson’s taxi on without too much fuss. The vehicle rolled on a few yards down the cobbles to another barricade, a ramp with winking lights that came up and prevented access, just by the spot where Airey Neave had been blown up by the IRA.
    ‘No, sorry, sir,’ said the policeman. Barlow had made to follow the taxi, because he wanted to have a word with Felix Thomson, and now he was told this was not on. He’d have to go that way, through the turnstiles. Did he have his pass with him? He had his pass.
    ‘Oh Cameron, by the way, I have a terrible feeling I have to make a speech in the debate this afternoon.’
    ‘That’s right, Roger. The whips have been on to us twice already. They are expecting it.’
    ‘Oh lor’, sighed the MP, stopping. ‘Can you remember what it’s all about?’
    Why the hell, wondered Cameron, couldn’t he ever concentrate on what she was saying? ‘I sent you a speech. I mean I sent you a draft of the speech. It was in your mail on Friday.’
    ‘Oh yes, and what’s the Bill about?’
    ‘It’s the Water Utilities Bill (England and Wales). The whips thought you might be interested in speaking on fluoridation.’
    ‘Mmmm,’ said Roger, ‘and what line am I taking?’
    ‘Well, I sort of presumed you would be taking a libertarian line. A lot of people have been writing in, saying how much they dislike fluoridation. They say it’s the nanny state.’
    ‘Nasty stuff, is it, fluoride?’
    ‘Well, it can be deadly poisonous, and they’ve done a lot of research on possible side-effects .
    ‘Don’t tell me,’ said Roger, ‘I know what it does. It causes premature baldness in rhesus monkeys, hypertension in rats, and it changes the sex of cuttlefish.’
    ‘If you say so, Roger.’ She tried shifting forwards. Adam would be waiting.
    ‘I mean, what if the whole libertarian argument is utter tosh? What if this stuff is really good for you, protects the nation’s teeth, mmm? I think of my parents’ generation.
    They never had the stuff and they had terrible trouble. I remember my father taking a great bite of an apple, and crack. Very psychologically damaging, losing your teeth. It’s all in Freud. You know, if you’re an elephant, and you lose your teeth, you’ve had it.’
    ‘I expect the same goes if you’re a lion.’
    ‘Good point,’ said Roger. ‘Here, just say aaah. Go on, open wide the pearly gates.’ Cameron had the surreal experience of offering her teeth for inspection to the Member for Cirencester.
    ‘See,’ said Roger, ‘inside every skull, thirty-two vital differences between the English and the Americans.’ As he was looking his research assistant in the mouth, he became aware of two people craning their necks to watch him from 120 feet up. It was Jason Pickel and Indira, their scopes glinting in the sun.
    ‘Can I stop now?’ asked Cameron.
    ‘Yeah, sure,’ said Barlow, and they resumed their walk to the wrought-iron porch of the Members’ Entrance.
    ‘You’re quite happy for me to check your teeth?’
    ‘No, it’s fine.’
    ‘Ah,’ said Roger, brightening again. ‘Now that is what we call Barlow’s Law of the Displaced Negative. In principle you are saying that you are happy for me to look at your teeth, but there is a stray negative, the no, which simply needs to be removed from the beginning of that sentence and inserted between subject and predicate, to give the real meaning. You secretly mean, “It’s not fine.” To give another example, men are often asked, “Do I look OK in this dress?” and they answer, “No, no, you look great.” The displaced negative is a clue to their real thoughts. They should say, “Yes, darling, you look great.” The female equivalent is “No, no, darling, you have got masses of hair.”‘
    Cameron snorted, not altogether fondly. She was damned if she was going to ask Roger if