Shakespeare the Guv’nor

We can all rattle off a list of famous Londoners. Michael Caine, Samuel Pepys, Barbara Windsor, Benjamin Disraeli to name but four.

However, Bozza is in trouble this week for trying to claim that William Shakespeare was also a Londoner. Labour MP John Spellar has taken issue with a leaflet sent to the capital’s residents by Boris to tie in with next year’s Mayoral election.

In the leaflet, Bozza says: “A pretty great Londoner (William Shakespeare) once asked: ‘What is the city but the people?’ before answering: ‘The people are the city’.

“London is the best big city in the world largely because of the people who live in it – you.”

William Shakespeare was, of course, born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564 and it is believed he was educated at the local grammar school, now called King Edward VI School, Stratford.

He also lived Stratford later in life, and died there in 1616.

However, the writer did spend much of his career in London – while making regular trips home to see his wife Anne Hathaway and their children. Many of his plays, such as Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Hamlet and King Lear, were performed at the Globe Theatre.

Mr Spellar claimed: “Everyone knows Shakespeare came from the West Midlands and probably spoke with a Black Country accent.

“It’s like all the claims that some secretive aristocrat wrote the plays.

“The elitist snobs on the London scene can’t bear the thought that a writer from the Midlands wrote our greatest literature. They should be ashamed of themselves.”