Just days after spilling the beans about his youthful cocaine use, south Oxfordshire MP Boris Johnson has told how he used to dodge parking tickets in Oxford.

Mr Johnson, in a new book on cars, reveals how he relied on his old Fiat's Belgian licence plates to avoid paying fines while a student at Oxford University.

In Life in the Fast Lane: The Johnson Guide to Cars, he writes: "A Fiat 128 two-door saloon, 1.2 litres, the Italian Stallion was the trusty steed that emancipated me from the shackles of childhood.

"Before traffic wardens became bonus-hungry maniacs, and when it was still rare for a student to own any kind of car at all, I parked all over the place, my favourite spot in Oxford being the yellow lines by the squash courts in Jowett Walk.

"Sometimes, it is true, I got a ticket. But what did I care? The Stallion had Belgian plates.

"I let them pile in drifts against the windscreen until - in the days before they were even sheathed in plastic - the fines just disintegrated in the rain."

In his book, published this week, Mr Johnson also shares his loathing of the growing number of rules and regulations governing motorists' behaviour.

Although promising not to "make a fuss" about new laws banning the use of handheld mobile phones in cars, the Tory MP points out: "Driving and telephoning is not fundamentally different from using your free hand to pick your nose, hit the children or turn the radio from Magic FM to something less glutinous."