Boris on PM - transcript
An extremely kind Boris-stopper has gone to the trouble of transcribing the whole of Boris’s interview on PM from just over a week ago.
The whole thing is behind the cut, but here are a few of the best questions:
- Who’s running for Mayor, old Boris or new Boris? The clown or the careful career politician?
- The RMT have called a tube strike today for April 28th and 29th. Your policy on strikes with regards to them is a bit of a joke isn’t it?
- Just on localism on smoking if I may, which was the topic in hand. Is localism more important than saving people from cancer and second-hand smoke?
All in all, we can see in this interview how desperate Boris always is to steer things back to his simplistic pre-learned lines on a few limited topic areas, and avoid any serious scrutiny of his policies, to the extent that he quickly becomes exasperated and angry-sounding as soon as anyone dares to question him. There’s plenty of evidence here of his propensity to interrupt, talk over and ignore people at any opportunity, too - congratulations to the transcriber for managing to decipher both sides of such talking clashes!
Eddie Mair: Now here’s Boris Johnson for the Conservatives, do you have a policy to stop the smell getting to London?
Boris Johnson: Well, Eddie, I want you to know that I think - I know you expect me to say this – I suspect it to be the stench of corruption from city hall, that’s wafting across the nostrils of Londoners, and, yes I do. I think what we should do is clean up the current mayor’s administration. Uh, introduce very serious, uh, procedures for proper accountability and offer change, and, uh, new thinking for Londoner’s on May 1st.
Eddie: Who’s running for Mayor, old Boris or new Boris? The clown or the careful career politician?
Boris: This is a very serious election, Eddie. The people are spending a lot of money in their council tax for this Labour mayor, and they deserve to have their questions, ah, answered very seriously.
Eddie (trying to speak): I’d-I’d-I’d like it if you answer mine.
Boris: What do you mean?
Eddie: Well-
Boris: There-There is no-
Eddie: The clown or the serious politician?
B: I reject your, I reject your, your hypothesis that there ever was such a character as Boris Johnson the cl-
E: It’s-It’s-It’s not mine if I may say so, it’s a question asked by Tom Atley in the Daily Mail today, he says, “you never seem comfortable bandying figures around or spouting around anodyne phrases like ‘delivering on policy’”.
B (long pause): I’m very comfortable with the policies I’m advancing which I think will improve the lives of Londoners and deliver better value for money. And whether that announcement comes from the lips of, you know, old Boris or new Boris I frankly don’t give a monkeys and nor, I think, do Londoners. What they want to know is whether they are going to have a change for the better on May 1st.
E: Another-
B: And-
E: Another-another, sorry for interrupting, another right-leaning paper, the Daily Telegraph, with which you’re familiar, concedes in it’s editorial today that you’ve attended debates, that you’ve campaigned assiduously in London’s outer boroughs, it says, but ‘it’s impossible to resist the suspicion that he’s being excessively marshalled –
B (talking over and trying to interrupt): Ah god, I mean, look -
E: - by his campaign managers who fear his notorious propensity for dropping bricks’.
B: Listen, let’s be in no doubt about this. This is a very serious election, people want to know what I stand for, what I think, the policies I’m going to deliver on May 2nd.
E: Are you being excessively marshalled by your campaign managers?
B (talking at the same time): I am not being excessively marshalled-
B: I am overwhelmingly self-disciplined, because I believe that’s its time for a change in London. And I think that Londoners deserve better value, and they deserve a Mayor who is going to give leadership on the things that really matter to them.
E: Such as, such as the Routemaster bus.
B: Such as, such as-
E: Did the, did the campaign managers crowd round you-
B: Such as disorder, disorder on buses. And, uh, crime on the streets, and the fact that you’re more likely, twice as likely, to be mugged on the streets of London as you are in New York. And I think-
E: Those campaign managers, those people – (interrupted) – forgive me.
B: And I think, those things are what Londoners want addressed.
E: Are those the campaign managers that crowded round you that day you let slip to a member of the public, a figure you never let slip in any of the debates, the true cost of five hundred new Routemasters, a £100 million?
B: Oh come off it. Do-me-a-favour. All I am saying is that the programme to introduce a new generation Routemaster, which will be a thoroughly popular and thoroughly effective, will be amply financed from the budget that the Mayor is, uh, providing for, for his five hundred new hybrid buses -
E: At a cost of?
B: - and we intend to bring it in at or about £100 million.
E: Why did it take so long to get that figure out of you? Because you’ve said all through the campaign it was £8 million.
B (talking over): Well-let me tell you - (exasperated noises) I’m sorry, pay attention-if-you-don’t-mind! The figure of eight million was for, the figure I initially gave, was for the cost of conductors. What I intend is to have, a, new generation of Routemaster bus, financed out of the budget for the five hundred hybrids. And the reason for doing this, is above all, is the people on the Artic (?), the bendy buses, uh, a) feel very often threatened and b) are getting away, daily, with fare evasion. And I don’t think they should, and it’s high time we got a mayor who took control of what’s happening on the buses, realised that the situation is very often out of control and took steps to improve it. And that’s why I want to have another 440 transport PCSOs, I’m going to double the size of the safer transport teams because I think that’s what Londoners care about.
E: The RMT have called a tube strike today for April 28th and 29th. Your policy on strikes with regards to them is a bit of a joke isn’t it?
B: I think our policy is very sensible and it’s one to which any, uh, moderate, sensible trades unionist will find a lot to agree with.
E: But your policy is to negotiate a no-strike deal with them and they don’t want it.
B (talking over): And let me - let me - let me - let me - yes, let me tell you what it is. It’s in exchange for independent, binding arbitration, to which we will exceed Tfl, Transport for London, we - we’ll agree to independent, binding arbitration in the event of a dispute about pay and conditions, in exchange for an agreement in principle that they don’t go on strike. And I do think this is the way forward, we’ve have sixteen-
E: You may well think this is the way forward, but they’re not interested Mr. Johnson, so your policy’s fallen apart before you even got to office.
B (talking over): sixteen - let me finish - we’ve had sixteen str - we’ve had sixteen-you know, let’s wait and see. I think we’ve had sixteen strikes, under this Labour mayor. They’re not unconnected I believe with the fact that, uh, the Labour party and the Mayor receive funding from the RMT. It’s time for a new approach, and new solutions to bring an end to Londoner’s transport misery. I don’t see why Londoners should endure-
E: That’s a great slogan Mr. Johnson, but the RMT, the RMT of your policy, say ‘you are living’-this is a direct quote-‘you’re living in cloud cuckoo land if you believe this. The RMT does not sign’ – it’s important you listen to this Mr. Johnson – ‘the RMT does not sign no strike deals and would never give up the right to strike’ so where’s your policy left?
B (talking over the whole time): I don’t see why Londoners should endure continuing industrial chaos. Well, they may say that now, they may say that now, let’s see, I’ve listened to it before, (indecipherable), I think that, when they come to see the advantages for them and for their families in stability and an independent binding arbiter, uh, in the event of a dispute about pay and conditions I think our policy will commend itself to people of common sense in unions. And I think it will commend itself to Londoners who want an end to the strike misery that costs this city £48 million over the last few years. There’s absolutely no point in continuing the current course and we need a new approach.
E: But you can’t explain to me how you’re going to persuade the RMT-
B: Yes I can!
E: - on something they think is cloud cuckoo land today.
B: I can tell you that I’m absolutely convinced that people of moderate opinion and people of common sense, within the unions, will be open to persuasion.
E: Online this week you said ‘If I had my way we’ve have an online referendum in London about whether to give boroughs back the power to give discretion over smoking to pubs and clubs’. In fact you’ve got no power to do any of that do you?
B: Yes. Well that’s absolutely right and all I was making, is a point about democracy and the relationship between government and individual firms and citizens. And I actually think if you’re going to have something like a smoking ban – and I’m not a smoker and I don’t particularly like smoking, I don’t encourage it – but I think if you are going to have a smoking ban, the most appropriate level – I’ve always said this – the most appropriate level to enforce and impose it is at a local level. What is the point in having locally elected politicians deciding, uh, licensing for local pubs and clubs, if they don’t have that kind of say at a local level.
E: So ideally, although as we’ve agreed you don’t have the power to do this. But, you want it devolved as locally as possible ideally -
B: I’m a localist.
E: - you’d have some pubs in one borough where you could smoke indoors and some pubs in another borough where you couldn’t.
B: That doesn’t seem to me to sound like such an absurd proposition.
E: You accepted a payment of £5,000 from the association of tobacco for a speaking occasion last year didn’t you?
B: I did and it has absolutely nothing to do with my views, which I’ve held for a long time and which are based not on any particular love or desire to encourage anyone to smoke, I deplore it, uh, but simply on -in – on, the belief that if you’re going to have localism, if you believe in devolution, if you believe in subsidiarity which I do, then you should leave some decisions to a local level, and I don’t think you should always be imposing everything top down from Whitehall. And that applies just as much to the police, by the way, as it does to health. And that’s why I want to induce far more localism into our running of the police. And I want monthly meetings with borough commanders-
E: Just on localism on smoking if I may, which was the topic in hand. Is localism more important than saving people from cancer and second-hand smoke?
B: Well, you know, that is a matter that can be taken up with individual boroughs that want to go whichever way they choose. And those are points that are very well known and very well made, and if there was a, you know, you know if the, smoking was illegal in this country, then of course that, that would be a matter for government. But since smoking is legal, uh, it is not banned by statute. I think that the right to smoke in a pub or a club should be something which is determined at a local level. I’ve always said that, and, I don’t think by the way, that the people of London are going to decide the election on that, what they want to know is who is going to make their streets safer.
E: Alright, Boris Johnson, thank you.