Boris Lover Brings Excuses

After London’s occasional Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson had been well and truly skewered by Eddie Mair on The Andy Marr Show (tm) yesterday morning, those out there on the right were faced with a dilemma: did they back Young Dave and cheer Bozza’s car crash, or kick the hated BBC for dissing their hero? Nominal Labour supporter Dan Hodges at Telegraph blogs did not hesitate.

Cripes chaps, my fans aren't doing too well either!

“Boris Johnson's Eddie Mair interview: if Boris's private life is fair game, then so is everybody else's” he proclaimed, adding “If the Mayor of London is lying to people about issues relating to his duties, that’s very serious. If he’s fabricating information that’s equally serious”. But he did not expand on those points, preferring just to denounce the interview as a “disgrace”.

Although the idea that Bozza had his private life unfairly targeted has struck a chord with a few, such as James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole, what Hodges cannot get his head around is that Mair did not go there. Had he mentioned Petronella Wyatt, that she and Bozza enjoyed romantic late night taxi rides, and that he got her pregnant and she had an abortion, he would have had a point.

Del Boy learns a new word. Wonder where from?

Mair solely mentioned the word “affair” in the context of Bozza lying to his party leader – the reason Michael Howard sacked him. This was also why he was sacked from the Times. The more eagle-eyed might discern a pattern. And his mentioning the Darius Guppy phone call is entirely relevant: this is someone running for public office indulging in a conspiracy to inflict actual bodily harm.

As to Bozza “lying to people about issues relating to his duties”, just how many examples does Hodges want? Thanks to Tom at Boris Watch, we can line up a few of these pretty rapidly: claiming credit for the Overground (down to Ken Livingstone), saying bendy buses kill cyclists, promising driverless tube trains, air quality fibs, and those “at no cost to the taxpayer” bikes, buses and cable car that aren’t.

And that’s before we get to his commitment to extend Tramlink to Crystal Palace which he went back on after getting re-elected, those “no strike deals” with the rail unions that never happened (and never will), the pledge to “bear down on fares” followed by putting them up, fibbing about Police numbers, and the frequent use of his Telegraph column to spread falsehood and misinformation.

So, given Bozza has been “lying to people about issues relating to his duties”, and “fabricating information”, perhaps the heroic Hodges will be on his case in short order – except, of course, he won’t. Eddie Mair could have hit Bozza with enough examples of Mayoral dishonesty to fill the whole hour of the Marr show, yet Bozza’s acolytes will just pretend the whoppers never happened.

Thus the triumph of belief over the facing of reality. No change there, then.