If you ever have a spare half hour at 10 on a Wednesday, head down to City Hall in London for mayor’s question time. It makes PMQs look serious, and the Australian House of Representatives look polite.
Here’s Boris Johnson after being asked by London assembly chair Dee Doocey to remember “that the smaller groups have a limited amount of time” when he answers their queries: “what was the question, what was the question?” the mayor repeated.
“Would the public be astonished blah blah blah fishcakes?” he continued.
The assembly’s main topic of discussion was the final mayor’s consolidated budget, and in particular Johnson’s claim that he had increased the Metropolitan Police Authority’s share of funds by £43m.
The Green Party’s Jenny Jones had asked Johnson whether it was true to say that his budget had “played with figures and compare[d] this year’s budget with figures from earlier in the same year” that were “not like for like”.
The mayor replied: “if you look at the graph of overall police staff, it’s true we have been making savings. But since 2008 there has been an increase of around 1,000 fully warranted police officers.”
Jones appealed to the chair that he was “not answering [her] question”, a call repeated by a number of other assembly members throughout the session.
Labour’s John Biggs, who gave outspoken criticism of what he called Johnson’s “barefaced lie” about increasing police numbers year on year, told the mayor he was a “disgraceful, lazy man” who “can’t be bothered to research the questions”.
Biggs continued: “You are abusing the trust of Londoners”.
Throughout much of the session, Doocey struggled to keep control, warning the mayor to “be a little less flippant” and threatening Biggs with expulsion from the chamber if he did not stop heckling Johnson during his answers.
Her pleas had little effect on either politician, with Biggs continuing to talk over the mayor, while Boris claimed that Biggs’s question contained only a “crouton of substance that floated to the surface of the minestrone of nothingness”.
When asked directly to “answer... a question from John” by Doocey, Johnson replied: “Well, I’m going to make my point anyway.”
This lack of authoritative chairing makes a mockery of the entire business of mayoral scrutiny. As Johnson himself told Total Politics this month, “I’ve got a bigger budget and more power than virtually the cabinet.” Where political power goes, decent accountability must follow.
To read Iain Dale’s full cover interview with Boris, see the latest issue of Total Politics, out now
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