Boris has had a lucky escape – but his recklessness goes on

By Len Duvall

Boris Johnson’s involvement in the Damian Green affair was this week described as “extraordinary and unwise”. Extraordinary because a Chairman of a police authority “decided to conduct his own enquiries” into the arrest. Unwise because a) “Mr Green was a friend and political ally” and this created a “risk that Mr Johnson would be perceived to be furthering private interests”; and b) Johnson “placed himself at risk of being called as a witness by either the CPS or defence in any criminal prosecution of Mr Green”.

These are not my findings, the findings of a politician or the findings of someone with any kind of grudge against the Mayor. They are the conclusions of an independent solicitor, appointed by the Metropolitan Police Authority and Greater London Authority to investigate whether Boris Johnson broke local government Codes of Conduct by intervening in the Green affair.

Boris Johnson – Chairman of the Metropolitan Police Authority, Conservative Mayor of London and former Parliamentary colleague of Damian Green – decided to contact his friend a couple of days after his arrest. Green assured Johnson, “he had not tried to bribe anybody and there was no breach of the Official Secrets Act”.

Less than a week later, Boris Johnson faced questions from the London Assembly. In this meeting he said three times that he did not think the case would produce a charge, prosecution or go to trial.

Now, I’m sure there are lots of criminal suspects in London who would like to be able to ring up the Chair of the Met and have their innocence pronounced to the world before the police had the chance to conclude their investigation. Unfortunately for them, the only suspect afforded this advantage is a friend, political ally and Conservative Party colleague of Boris Johnson.

Johnson was briefed, as Chairman of the MPA, by the then acting Commissioner of the Met that Mr Green was to be arrested. After speaking to David Cameron later that day, Johnson telephoned the Commissioner to express his reaction to the arrest.

Later that night, Johnson issued a press release saying that he had expressed his concerns “in trenchant terms” to Sir Paul Stephenson and “would need to see convincing evidence that this action was necessary”.

It is hard to imagine what more a Chair or Member of a police authority could do to bring his office into disrepute. He made public a confidential briefing he received from the Met Commissioner, I would argue, for purely political ends. He contacted his friend and political ally, a suspect in a live criminal investigation, to “ascertain the facts of the case”. And he said numerous times, in a public arena that, effectively, he thought Green was innocent.

For reasons unbeknown to me, the solicitor’s strict interpretation of the Code of Conduct led him conclude that Boris Johnson’s actions did not amount to a breach.

But he has recommended that Boris Johnson and his senior staff receive one-to-one training on the Code of Conduct and that a press protocol be drawn up between the Mayor’s office and MPA to prevent this happening again.

Given the extraordinary, unwise, and reckless way Boris Johnson behaved, he has had a very lucky escape.