Last week, at one of the last major events of his party election campaign, at the conclusion of his 40-year drive to become leader of the British Conservative Party and thus prime minister of Britain, Boris Johnson made a speech. Unusually for Johnson, who often speaks off the cuff, he brought a prop to the hustings. It was a kipper - a smoked fish - wrapped in plastic.
He held it aloft, to a round of laughter. This kipper, he told his audience, came from a kipper smoker on the Isle of Man - an angry kipper smoker.