 Having spoken three times at Conservative Party conferences, including in 2006 entertaining guests at a Tory conference dinner with a ten-minute political rap, Read said that he was asked to run for the Conservative Party nomination for the London Mayoral elections in 2008.He subsequently announced that he was instead putting his energies behind Boris Johnson's ultimately successful candidacy.On 21 July 2012, Read spoke at the UK Independence Party's South East regional Conference in Frimley, where he was also announced as a member of the party.