Boris Johnson’s housing u-turn?

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

After Boris Johnson spoke of “Kosovo-style social cleansing” in a discussion about housing benefits on the BBC this morning, he now appears to ahve attempted a swift and sharp u-turn, coming out in full support of the government’s policies. Johnson now says:

“My consistent position has been that the government is absolutely right to reform the housing benefit system which has become completely unsustainable. I do not agree with the wild accusations from defenders of the current system that reform will lead to social cleansing.”

That’s certainly an interesting definition of the word “consistent”. It certainly looks like Johnson has come under pressure from Downing Street to row-back on his previous comments, which Labour’s Mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone has picked up on this afternoon, saying that Boris has demonstrated a “complete inability to put the interests of Londoners first”:

“Boris Johnson’s chaos over the Government’s disastrous plans to cap housing benefit demonstrates his complete inability to put the interests of Londoners first before the interests of the Conservative Party and his own self interest.”

“Boris Johnson cannot make his mind up between condemning changes to housing benefits or a robust defence of the Government just hours later. Because he is a Conservative he will always be under pressure to put his government before the interests of London.”

“Today’s u-turn has exposed any pretence that the Conservative Mayor will conistently stand up and fight for the thousands of families in the capital who face eviction and poverty as a result of his own government’s cuts to housing benefit.”

We certainly haven’t heard the last of this story. It remains to be seen what Johnson’s real views are, and whether he’ll stay quiet and sit on his hands either way – neither of which are known to be his strong points.