Boris launches F-word attack
Thursday, 12 February 2009 5:40 PM
By politics.co.uk staff
Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has been accused of launching a furious swear-filled rant at a senior Labour MP.
He is alleged to have used the F-word 10 times and accused Keith Vaz, chairman of the home affairs committee, of "bull***".
The Evening Standard reported the tirade came during a phone conversation about the accuracy of Mr Johnson's evidence over the Damian Green affair.
Mr Johnson's aides said he used the F-word no more than two or three times and that he regarded the call as private.
Minutes were allegedly taken of the conversation between 19.10 GMT and 19.25 GMT on February 4th and were distributed to committee members.
Committee members were so shocked by Mr Johnson's statements that they wrote them down.
A spokesman for the Mayor's office said: "It was a long and difficult conversation which the Mayor regarded as private."
According to the Evening Standard, these are some of the comments in the minutes allegedly taken of the conversation between Mr Johnson and Mr Vaz on February 4th:
"I used to think that you were a straight guy. A man that you could do business with. This is f***ing ridiculous."
"You have gone on television and connived to try to give the impression that I f***ing tipped off David Cameron."
"You are trying to make me look like a f***ing fool.
"I cannot believe that you have allowed the (committee) to become a part of this. This is such f***ing bull****."
"I f***ing warned you beforehand that I would not be very good on details."
"I have been asked endlessly about phone conversations with Paul Stephenson but calls with Cameron were completely f***ing irrelevant."
"You have behaved in an unbelievably naked partisan way...f***ing smear tactics from the Labour Party."
"The key point that is not getting across - I didn't give any f***ing information to Cameron."
Questions have been raised concerning the account Boris Johnson gave to the home affairs select committee about his knowledge of the arrest of Damian Green.
"In oral evidence to the committee, then immediately after the formal session had ceased, and then in subsequent communications, you have given no fewer than four different accounts of the communications you had with leader of the opposition regarding the arrest of Damian Green," Mr Vaz wrote yesterday in his second letter to Mr Johnson over the matter.
"The disparities between the evidence you gave us and your subsequent communications have led my committee to express concerns about your apparent level of preparation to give formal evidence to a select committee of the House of Commons," he continued.
"We are also concerned about the level of respect and courtesy you have shown the committee in providing evidence and especially in your subsequent communications.
"The committee are unanimously resolved in their decision to request that you now provide a prompt written clarification of the actual times of the calls made to David Cameron on the day of Damian Green's arrest, with some indication of the basis on which you can now be confident of your evidence."
The mayor of London earned his first letter after taking Mr Vaz aside following his last committee appearance and telling him his original account may not have been quite accurate. Since then he has changed his account once again.
Mr Green, shadow immigration minister, was arrested last year following a police investigation into Home Office leaks.
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