No, I didn’t say that. It was a German, Oscar Adolf Hermann Schmitz, way back in 1904. Not so long ago that it doesn’t still wound.

Schmitz — or Fritz, as Sun readers would cry — had this to say of the land that bore Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Purcell, Parry and Holst :

England, he said is “Das Land Ohne Musik” — the land without music.

Thankfully, the country now has a champion. A man of many parts, a journalist and former editor of one of our top weekly magazines; a Member of Parliament and Shadow Minister for Higher Education, no less.

Step forward Defender of the Faith (musical variety) … (drum roll) : Boris Johnson.

A little late, we might murmur into our gins and tonic. And is he the best man for the job? After all …

But don’t look a gift horse in the mouth … even if Boris’s foot is already in it.

Enough of prelude and overture. Read Boris in his own words Here.