The first time Gordon Brown said this he misled the House and I demanded an
apology. Now he uses his Northern Rock press conference to spread the same
lies. When I am Mayor of London, police numbers will increase in their
hundreds in the Capital, as I explained in my 36 page crime manifesto. For the
Prime Minister to say different is just plain rubbish. Mired in
maladministration, Labour are just trying to deflect attention away from
themselves at a time when the public are crying out for change. I offer that
change in London - clearly the Prime Minister doesn't like it one bit.
political commentator * author * publisher * bookseller * radio presenter * blogger * Conservative candidate * former lobbyist * Jack Russell owner * West Ham United fanatic * Email iain AT iaindale DOT com
Monday, February 18, 2008
Boris: Brown Lied at Press Conference
Boris Johnson is not a happy bunny. At his press conference this morning, Gordon Brown asserted that under a Johnson mayoralty police numbers would be cut. Boris has just issued this rather forthright statement...
Boris has a manifesto for crime ! Wicked !
ReplyDeleteMore than 80% of the GLA precept is devoted to the Metropolitan Police Authority (in 2007/8 it was £2.5bn out of a total of £3bn, or 82.7%) and the bulk of the MPA spend is pay and rations. It simply is not possible for any Mayor to hold the precept down in a way which does not require cuts at the operational end of the Met.
ReplyDeleteBoris Johnson did make a pledge to cut spending on the Met. Either he has to repudiate that pledge or stand by it and tell us where the police cuts will go.
I am not a Tory, but I have learnt never to trust Labour when they comment on what the Tories will do in power.
ReplyDeleteThey always say that if the Tories get in then they will cut public services by [insert random number in billions and triple it].
It's just like the rubbish they say about what the Tories will do with the Freedom Card. They're talking out their arse.
Did Boris mention the words 'Guppy' or 'Gate' in his statement, or say why he offered information to one of his Bullingdon Club chums for the purposes of having a journalist beaten up...?
ReplyDeleteI've posted the u-tube of Boris attempting to laugh the incident off when confronted by Ian Hislop on 'Have I Got News for You'...
Boris says if elected Mayor, he would appoint himself to run the Metropolitan Police.
But is a man with Boris's record on crime fit to be in charge of law and order...?
Possibly what Brown is really saying is that police number are going to drop everywhere - as he's going to cut the funding. Sir Ronnie Flanagan was saying as much very recently in his review of policing - hence it could be true whom ever wins the mayoral race.
ReplyDeleteIts also a classic Brown smear - just like the one he told before the last general election about Conservative spending plans leading to the sacking of every teacher and nurse.
Its also typical of the cowardly man that he slips his slime in when talking about other things. He often speaks in terms of assertions - rather than evidence based backs.
The man is unfit to hold high office. Labour know that, but they are too cowardly to remove him.
Iain,
ReplyDeleteAs any metropolitan police officer, like myself, could tell Boris. There is great scope to get far more uniform police out unto the streets, using the present numbers.
There is great scope to make vast savings to allow for more recruitment within the present budget.
Boothroyd, again working in the number 10 kindergarten, believes, like Brown that a Lie upon a Lie makes a truth!
Boris could consider legal action! Getting Brown into the witness box to answer all his lies!! (to prove that he is a liar!)would be a great day. Come on Boris sue the liar.
As Mr Bean wasn't in parliament when he told this lie can he be sued for defamation?
ReplyDeleteKen wastes money at such a lick that Boris could save a few billion just on paper clips.
ReplyDeleteOr those barmy buses costing $1 million each which don't have any hydrogen to run on
or the loss-making congestion charge,
or the etc etc
When did Boris promise to cut the precept?
ReplyDeleteIf 80% goes to the police, he can cut it by 20% without affecting police numbers.
Brown can't seriously be saying that he has a good grasp on finance issues on a day like today?
£3,500 per household could buy a lot of police, how many is Brown going to cut to repay the Rock Debt?
Iain, are you pursuing a policy of posting stories that will flush out the execrable Mavis Boothroyd? She really should take her specious facts and shove them where the sun shines.
ReplyDeleteI am saddened that Labour has sunk this low. This is a new low. A low low. A low so low that that it would sink to the bottom of a tank full of bodily fluids and etch its way through the base.
I think Northern Rock will sink Labour for the forseeable. They have used the "N" word. Not since the days of Red Robbo and Wapping, have I witnessed Labour at its most disastrously Old Labour. Gordon Brown has finally been revealed in all his foul bogey eating refulgence: a born yesterday Socialist, with hatred of the middle class threaded through his DNA
Boris should sue the bastard, plain and simple. Brown has twice lied and been called on both occasions. Let's see him in court.
ReplyDeleteAnd, Boothroyd, so you obviously have the inside on Boris's plans then. Your assertion as to a 'holding down' of the precept and its effects - where's your evidence for that?
"It simply is not possible ---"
ReplyDeleteany age , any topic
-thus speaks the voice of complacency and stasis and tired out office holders frightened for their jobs .
Boothroyd doesnt get to work from the no10 kindergarten, he has to put up with working for a backbench MP. He is as far away from power as the illegal immigrant who cleans the telephones in Westminster. David just shills shills shills. At one point he was a respected poster on many different forums, but now he is a laughing stock.
ReplyDeleteNonsense Dale.
ReplyDeleteAs ever you need to be corrected. Brown made the exact same statement regarding bungling Boris in the commons on 30/01/2007. Running out of ideas are you. You have created a Thread that relates to a story that is now 18 days old. Brown commented in the commons about Boris cutting the Mets budget, Boris responded as a point of order...enough said.
Why are you bringing up 18 day old material.
By the way, the name's Iain.
ReplyDeleteit's you who is talking arrant nonsense. Brown said it in his press conference this morning, I heard him say it. Boris then issued a press release. Care to retract?
Lots of Labour trolls on here today. Can't think why that would be.
"a born yesterday Socialist" - brilliant WW.
ReplyDeleteIt's clear that Gordon inhabits a different plane of reality from ours - but still, this seems like a really odd miscalculation on his part. Given that Boris brought him up on this big fib the first time he told it and (presumably) embarrassed him in the process, why on earth would he choose to repeat it - especially on a day like Brown Monday? Surely it should have been absolutely clear to him what Boris' response would be?
ReplyDeleteSome sh*thead called Andrew Dismore has just repeated the allegation in Parliament.
ReplyDeleteBrown repeated the lie because he didn't like the question, which was whether he still backed Livingstone for Mayor.
ReplyDeleteGood for Boris for jumping on him immediately. The NuLab liars have been getting away with smears like this without any challenge from the press for years.
Anon 1.51 is probably an operative in the newly formed Labour Party "Blog Response Unit" Get used to them. So far they have conformed to a fairly narrow remit which has probably been sent to them in the form of a memo on the equivalent of one sheet of A4.
ReplyDeleteThe main thrust of its counter-offensive seems to be the following: (in no particular order)
First, suggest that Iain Dale is running out of ideas, is stale, is out of touch and irrelevant. Do this regularly along the lines of the Goebbels principle. (Make sure you don't use the same wording everytime, but make sure also that it amounts to the same lie).
Next, field a number of tame Labour apparatchiks to field a few occult statistics that will obfuscate and preoccupy those who are partial to "facts".
Next, always rehearse the tired old claptrap about brown envelopes and Tory sleaze, and being the "posh" party and if in doubt, use a nice quippy cliche to drive the point home.
Next, Always, always have the last word.
Next, adopt an anonymous approach or an ad hoc identity on the basis that nobody can attribute or hit a moving target. That way, the BRU can remain in the background, merely a resource that provides the party line.
Next, attack his regular contributors. Not by name, but by making sure they are branded "dribbling inadequates" and that they are dismissed as autistic lowlifes who vote BNP.
Stage Two:
Post anonymous comments that are so right wing and so offensive that it makes the blog look bad.
Any suggestions?
Why is it news that Gordon Brown has lied? Seems to me that he does little else other than lie, or at least deliberately mislead. Comparing the RPI under the Conservative government with the CPI under the Labour government to show how "inflation" is down, being just one example.
ReplyDeleteI can't see why folk like David Boothroyd waste so much time loyally trolling on behalf of Brown or Livingstone, when they must know that either would dump on them without hesitation if it would save his own skin. Loyalty is admirable but not all causes deserve it.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to see Boris putting his crime manifesto into the implementation phase...
ReplyDeleteI can see it now - His building by the side of the Thames will swing round on its axis, and he will spin round in his chair, with a white cat on his lap..
He points his remote towards Houses of Parliament, the building opens up and a super power laser takes the top of Big Ben - Speaker Martin is neutralised and Cameron takes the Chair.
A press of some other buttons and loads of criminals are released to do Boris the Jackal's bidding, and with an evil cackle he says...
"Just a few short days before the public acclamation to have me installed as life president is unstoppable.."
Trouble with Boris of course is that he says a different thing every time it suits him. Some would call that lying. Others would say dithering. A third group would say a Lib Dem style something different for every doorstep.
ReplyDeleteAnon@2:38
ReplyDeleteUntil I noticed you'd named Boris there, I thought you were describing Red Ken and his Number Two henchman, Mr Jasper.
On a more serious note: I wonder which bit of this story the BBC will cover. Brown's repeat of a lie or Boris's exposure thereof?
ReplyDeleteThis is to register my objection to yet another misunderstanding of an American catch phrase. If people can't copy American catchphrases properly, they should leave them alone.
ReplyDeleteIain, have you ever, in your life, seen a "happy" bunny? Have you ever seen a sad bunny? A reflective bunny, perhaps? Can't you see that the notion of an emotionally transparent bunny is absurd?
OTOH, the one creature in the world with its emotions right there on display to the max is a puppy. A happy puppy wags not just its tail, but its entire hindquarters. Its eyes glisten with happines. It romps around aimlessly going, "Yap, yap, yap! Oh, God, I am so happy!"
In contrast, NOT a happy puppy is subdued and worried. It has its tail between its legs. Sometimes it whimpers. It curls itself into a submissive little ball and looks up with sad, worried eyes, its unhappy state advertised for all the world to see.
As so often, the British have misheard and adopted the wrong American terminology. And it drives me nuts because it is so obviously a mistake.
Sorry. Although it's not the main issue of this thread, it is still glancingly on topic. It just drives me crazy every time I hear it.
wrinkled weasel.
ReplyDeleteperhaps - as this Labour Shower- want to know everything about us, then it is quite reasonable for everyone wanting to comment on iain's blog to give their name / address etc etc and for that to be verified before any comment can be accepted.
Gosh that would slow down the Downing Street Kindergarten.
Doesn't Brown know how to spend public money!!!!!
Mind you I do hope they try to put me in the 'looney right' department! I need a new car!
If Mr Dale is to be targeted by a Neolabour "Blog Response Unit" then I am a happy bunny, because he will receive a deserved taste of his own medicine.
ReplyDeletePedant - There is no such thing as a happy bunny. Even an emotionally overwhelmed bunny maintains an air of cool reserve.
ReplyDeleteEvery single time some NuLab goon says "The Tories will cut £x billion and this equates to x teachers / nurses / coppers", the response should be "But Brown spent £100bn buying Northern Rock and that equates to x teachers / nurses / coppers"
ReplyDeleteyou don't seem like a very happy bunny Verity.
ReplyDeleteBrown knows all about the need for keeping police numbers up. Let's face it under Labour they keep the police fully occupied - if only investigating their own party's dodgy dealings. Ken and his advisers are obviously doing their best for the party with their own contribution.
ReplyDeleteThe whole edifice of the mayor of London should be dismantled again.
ReplyDeleteIt's an unnecessary layer, meaning an unnecessary burden and was created for the ego of one man. Just as Britain was wrecked in the service of mad Tony Blair's deluded evaluation of himself.
I don't like Boris, but if he promised to cancel the Olympics, I could warm to him.
verity said...
ReplyDelete"This is to register my objection to yet another misunderstanding of an American catch phrase. If people can't copy American catchphrases properly, they should leave them alone."
You must accept that people in this country, having decided to adopt the American term 'happy bunny', are free to attach a somewhat different meaning to it.
verity said...
ReplyDelete"The whole edifice of the mayor of London should be dismantled again.
It's an unnecessary layer, meaning an unnecessary burden and was created for the ego of one man."
Which man are you thinking of? It couldn't have been created with Livingstone in mind because he was the last peson Blair wanted to see as Mayor.
Sea Shanty Irish here:
ReplyDeleteexample of proper American:
"That Boris Johnson is one sick puppy."
fairdealphil said...
ReplyDelete"But is a man with Boris's record on crime fit to be in charge of law and order...?"
Well, as law and order, especially in London, is a joke, I'd say it seems quite appropriate.
I think we should all Vote Boris For Mayor - found this on Youtube, it's awesome:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMopsG_OGJ4