Boris breaks the rules on financial declarations, again
Tut, tut. For someone so keen on highlighting alleged, but unproven, ’sleaze’ in City Hall, and who delights in whipping up complaints about Ken’s campaign funding, which is not breaking any rules, Boris should really (to coin a phrase) sort out his own tangled hair before trying to comb other people’s.
Today, the Evening Standard broke the news that Boris Johnson has been in breach of Parliamentary rules for 18 months, having never declared to Parliament that he owned a third of the shares in a TV company – more than double the 15% threshold that makes declaration compulsory.
Labour MP Karen Buck today referred the breach to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards John Lyon for a full investigation.
The Regent’s Park & Kensington North MP said: "This shows both hypocrisy and incompetence. Londoners can’t afford to have someone who has such ‘oversights’ in charge of the multi-billion pound responsibilities of Mayor… Ignorance of the law is no defence at all. If he can’t run his MP’s office properly, how can he run London?"
Cabinet minister Peter Hain was forced to quit this year for failing to declare donations to his office in full.
In other words, in Government this could easily be a resignable offence. It also follows a reprimand for Boris from the Electoral Commission earlier this year for failing to declare correctly £45,000 in donations.
What these incidents show is that Boris is completely incompetent, and can’t follow the basic rules with even his own financial affairs. Quite how anyone will believe he can be trusted with London’s £11bn budget is beyond me!
It’s also interesting that it was the Evening Standard which broke this story. It certainly looks like they’re trying to claw back some standards after realising they were really doing themselves a lot of damage with their relentless bias.
April 24th, 2008 at 10.20
Oh my word. What stunning investigative reporting. How reassuring to know there are people out there in the mould of Woodward and Bernstein to uncover such serious public maladministration. I rest serenely at night knowing that.
Is this the best you really have? Is this what you have been saving up as the ‘Killer Blow’? You’re attempt to turn this into the claim, “Boris is completely incompetent” has me rocking in my chair in stitches.
This is a waste of cyberspace.
April 24th, 2008 at 12.57
It was an Evening Standard story “Dan The Man”. If anyone has been saving it up, it’s them.
April 24th, 2008 at 14.45
Well he declared the £30K so this is hardly a big deal is it.
April 24th, 2008 at 15.44
What kind of defence is that, angela?
“Sorry officer, I admit I did steal sweets from the corner shop, but a few days before that I filed my tax return on time, so can we call it even?”
Perhaps you’ll be calling for the Evening Standard to focus on the billions of pounds (99.9% of the budget) that haven’t gone missing from the LDA next
April 24th, 2008 at 18.40
I’m sorry buy we all make mistakes
its not like ken is better
he is now deining his party so he doesn’t get blamed for cordons party
like cmon
boris at least has charachter good politics and doesn’t consicently lie !
Vote Boris !
April 24th, 2008 at 20.59
I’m rather confused by some of your ’sentences’, if one can call them that, James.
However, I think I detect the suggestion that ‘Boris doesn’t lie’, somewhere in there, so I’ll have to draw your attention to my previous reply to someone trying to pretend Boris doesn’t lie.
And of course, in addition to all the lies listed there, there have since been the lies on ITV on Tuesday night and the lies today about crime.
I’m almost starting to wonder if he ever tells the truth!