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That famous Boris Johnson temper

3rd April, 2012 11:13 am

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What Boris Johnson said to Ken Livingstone in a lift after the LBC debate this morning:

“You’re a f**king liar. You’re a f**king liar. You’re a f**king liar.”

Does that sound like someone who is relaxed with their performance? In control? Comfortable?

Update: Ken’s team have responded to the outburst:

“Boris Johnson lost his temper because he lost the debate – he talked about cable cars not cutting fares and the squeeze on Londoners.”

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Winston_from_the_Ministry

It doesn’t sound like someone who is wrong. I’m sure there are quite a few people who would have liked to say exactly the same thing to Ken.

Good on Boris.
Andy Peacock

Problem with Boris he doesn’t like the true.He more interested supporting Cameron’s and Osborne cut in the top rate in tax for millionaires in London, while families and workers suffer in his high transport tax bomb.
- JoeDM
  
  Problem with Ken is that he doesn’t like talking about his use of a Ltd company to avoid taxation.
KonradBaxter

Yes, but he is right though.

And at least he didn’t call Ken a German war criminal or a scumbag.
- dave stone
  
  Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, according to Ken, set up a company (Finland Station) to handle income. De Pfeffel Johnson has questions to answer:
  
  1. Did [Johnson] pay income tax on all of his earnings from Finland Station? Can he categorically say that he didn’t receive any income through dividends and instead pay capital gains tax of 18% (rather than paying income tax at 40%)?
  
  2. When he sold his shareholdings in Finland Station to David Jeffcock and Barnaby Spurrier – did he pay income tax on the money that he received at 40%, or capital gains tax at 18%?
  
  3. Did he employ anyone?
  - KonradBaxter
    
    And?
    - Dave Postles
      
      Conjunction.
      - KonradBaxter
        
        Between the tax arrangements of Ken and Boris?
      - dave stone
        
        Correct. If it’s an issue for one it’s an issue for the other. Haven’t you read the back-story?
      - GuyM
        
        When did Boris ever say anything similar to Ken about use of company structures for tax avoidance?
        
        The question is not having done something perfectly legal and normal, but in having bleated on about how bad it was, how people were so and so’s for doing it and shouldn’t be allowed to vote……. whilst doing it himself on the quiet.
      - dave stone
        
        If you know anything about business you’ll know that Ken’s arrangements are standard practice – every accountant will advise such.
        
        It seems Boris has made identical arrangements. If it’s wrong for Ken why isn’t it wrong for Boris de Pfeffel Johnson?
        
        Seems that the posh chaps want one rule for them and another for everyone else.
      - Jonathan Roberts
        
        Dave, I think you’re deliberately avoiding the fact that Guy is talking about hypocrisy, not about methods of tax avoidance.
        
        By the way, a significant amount of the money that Silveta Ltd handled came from Ken’s work for Press TV, President Ahmadinejad’s propaganda broadcaster which supports his brutal Iranian regime. I couldn’t support any man who made his money from such ways – and I don’t think anyone of genuine principle could either.
      - AlanGiles
        
        Jon, before you join Guy’s fan club, I’d be interested to know if you share his views on:
        
        “The lower classes”
        
        “Working class chavs”
        
        “The underclass”
        
        Everybody under 25 whom he considers ill-educated (i.e everyone except his two daughters)
        and his general contempt for anybody he considers “poorer” financially or educationally than himself.
      - GuyM
        
        To clarify, read up. I’m open on not liking the working classes and the view is simple, calss war is alive and well and you can’t bitch about “toffs” etc. and not be able to take it back in return.
        
        As to the under 25s, it’s better to lesson risk as a hiring manager/executive by taking a mature applicant than someone who lacks soft business skills.
        
        Last I checked my responsibility was to my employer, my departments/teams and myself, not to the under 25s.
      - AlanGiles
        
        Guy You are really not worth arguing with, so to quote several other posters on this site i9n recent weeks, I can just sum up my feelings to your attitude in one word – “bollox”
      - GuyM
        
        Fair enough, much as is my view of your opinions as well
      - AlanGiles
        
        Guy. To be candid it is not just your views I find abhorent. There is a bogosity about you. For example, you forever mither on about your important job yet you seem to be spend all hours of every day trolling on this site. Unless that is your “job” I and anyone else am entitled to wonder if you are who and what you claim to be.
      - Jonathan Roberts
        
        Nothing to say on the Iranian issue then Alan?
        
        As it happens, no of course I don’t agree with everything Guy says, but then I don’t reduce politics to blind loyalty to people I’ve never met before.
        
        You may have seen me yesterday defending working class people from Treborc’s apparent assumption they they are not ‘hard working people’ – he refused to clarify despite several requests.
      - AlanGiles
        
        Jon, No I have nothing to say about Iran, thanks.
        
        It is not for me to defend treborc, but my impression was that he feels because he is disabled he is not considered to be a “worker” (or “hard-working”to use the Blairite epithet) in the current Labour party scenario. It is true it was Lord Glasman who referred to the less well off, Ed just witters on about the “squeezed middle”
      - Jonathan Roberts
        
        how can you not care about him working for Iranian State TV?!?!
      - Mike Homfray
        
        Well, I have never met you but I would nt wish to vote for you if you were the local Labour candidate because I think you have views which could easily fit into the Coalition. Whatever you might think Of some of Ken’s views he has an excellent record of achievement. You lost your deposit at a delayed election which really doesn’t say much for the tactic of pretending Tory ideas are Labour.
      - Jonathan Roberts
        
        i didnt lose my deposite in a very safe tory seat.
      - Mike Homfray
        
        Your result was atrocious – your pseudo-Tory ideas didn’t make any impact at all
      - derek
        
        Jonathan, many accuse Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams of terrorist acts, yet today their member of the N.Irish assembly, talking peaqce and looking for ways to make life better for the people of NIreland.
      - AlanGiles
        
        Jon, have to reply here as I am getting single space columns below!
        
        The Saintly Blair is not adverse to taking money from despots and he fawned round Ghadaffi.
        
        That is why I will not condemn KL for doing things the dear leader did. I might not do things like that because I don’t need money like TB (&KL) need it, but if it is OK for one it is OK for the other or vice versa
      - dave stone
        
        Here’s the deal. I voted against entering the EU. My side lost. Does that mean that I should forever deny myself any advantages that arise from EU membership or otherwise be a hypocrite? Of course not. I have to accept and live with the verdict.
        
        The same applies with tax arrangements. I may or may not dislike current arrangements but they are as they are and all have to work with them as they are.
        
        That’s what Ken has done. No doubt if he had done otherwise there’d be some on here squawking about Ken demonstrating why Labour are not business-savvy.
      - GuyM
        
        I laughed at this so much, you think going about swearing at those using companies to avoid tax and wanting to take away their right to vote, whilst doing the same thing is just due to common business practice?
        
        So Ken believes he shouldn’t ahve the right to vote anymore? Can we get confirmation from him?
      - Hugh
        
        Ken didn’t just criticise the current tax arrangements; he criticised people who took advantage of them to lower the tax they pay.
        
        So the deal is your analogy is nonsense and Ken is a hypocrite.
      - derek
        
        And Boris wanted a PA to work on the campaign for zilch, he even advertised the position as no pay.
      - Hugh
        
        And you’re about to explain how that makes him a hypocrite…
      - GuyM
        
        How is Boris wanting an intern the same as Ken telling fibs about his tax affairs?
      - Jonathan Roberts
        
        No comment on the Iranian issue then Dave?
        
        And you keep avoiding the charge of hypocrisy. The vote on Europe was many, many years ago. Ken was avoiding tax at the same time is criticising others who did the same.
      - dave stone
        
        I know nothing of the ‘Iranian issue’.
      - Jonathan Roberts
        
        convenient
      - derek
        
        Rising from my sick bed, I weakly yell, Rumsfeld met Saddam more times than any other diplomat, Blair had his meetings in the desert with the maddog and Jack gave Mugabe a warm welcomewhile Bush had business deals with the Bin Laden’s, why did AITKEN GO TO JAIL?
      - Arieh Kovler
        
        actually no.
        
        1. Ken’s company was a holding company to receive his income. Boris’ seems to have actually made programmes.
        
        2 .Boris was PAID by the company and so paid full income tax on the money. Ken took dividends and so paid (lower) Capital Gains tax, as did his partner, thus avoiding taxes.
        
        3. If Ken is (wrongly) accusing Boris of using the same tax dodge as him, what does that say about Ken and the actual tax dodge?
      - GuyM
        
        You need to read Dave, I did say “the question is not having done something perfectly normal and legal…”
        
        I’ve used a holding company for freelance work over the years, as have many people I’ve worked with.
        
        I have no problem with Livingstone doing so, it’s normal business practice.
        
        However Ken’s the only person I’ve seen out and about saying those doing it are all tax avoiding scum who deserve to lose the right to vote etc. whilst doing exactly the same thing himself.
        
        If that isn’t rank hypocrisy tell me what is?
  - Arieh Kovler
    
    Boris has answered:
    
    1. Yes. He paid income tax and received no dividends.
    2. He didn’t sell his shareholding, he gave it away ( it was worth about £100)
    3. The company was a legit production company so any employees would have worked on making TV shows. None were involved in any political activity.
GuyM

Boris’ every word true was as can be……
Hugh

Sounds like someone who’s a bit frustrated by the fact that Livingstone is a liar.
Hugh

Sounds like someone who’s a bit frustrated by the fact that Livingstone is a liar.
- Chilbaldi
  
  At least he didn’t refer to Mr Livingstone’s recent unsavoury comments about x, y and z minority groups. Now that would have been really damaging for team Livingstone.
Sarah Hayward

But Boris is a political genius again. Let’s all talk about his four letter outburst and not the policy points that Ken won the debate on….. It’s sickening but it’s an effective deflection strategy from poor policy and poor performance.
- Nickmccarty
  
  Absolutely right. Typical Tory tactic…See petrol panic, pasty panic etc etc..Anything to deflect from effects of the budget on “hardworking decent ” people… Nick McCarty
  - treborc
    
    Thank god I’m disabled then, means nobody is after me.
dave stone

Boris de Pfeffel Johnson gets red-faced with rage and throws a tantrum! Let’s hope the lift ctv was recording – this’ll go down a storm on youtube.
- Leon
  
  Why is it those on the left have to resort to ridiculing people’s names when they want to avoid an uncomfortable truth? It always comes down to raw class politics. Chippy and pathetic. Boris was right Ken is a proven liar and supporter of some fairly obnoxious people and regimes. Oh what was Millbands original name before he came to the UK? sorry that doesn’t matter when it is one of yours – or Blairs full name or Tony Benn?
  - dave stone
    
    Are you saying that posh chaps are an electoral liability?
    - Hugh
      
      Ed will certainly be hoping not.
    - GuyM
      
      Not a liability at all, however a direct insult based upon class….. which if you engage in it you should ahve no objection to insults directed at the lower classes and a negative view held of them in return?
      
      I disagree with “we’re all in it together” pretty strongly and I have no problem with you using “de Pfeffel”, but of course in turn you then can have no complaint of my disdain for working class chavs and their fixation with reality tv and the horribly nasty common accents they all have etc. …. can you?
      
      “de Pfeffel” or “Kyle and Kylie”, I know which I prefer.
      - dave stone
        
        “you then can have no complaint of my disdain for working class chavs”
        
        Why should I bother with your disdain? I couldn’t care less. Water off a ducks back to me, mate.
      - GuyM
        
        Good, I’m all for honesty and openness.
        
        You want to attack someone for being a “toff” and I want to refuse to employ working class oiks.
        
        All’s fair isn’t it.
      - B Bendle
        
        Many Tories and upper-middle class people often express disdain for working-class people, hence the class-based insults in return. Conservatives are far more obsessed with class than Labour voters, as you demonstrate. It’s not all that long ago that Oliver Letwin was expressing his regret that people “from Sheffield” had been able to travel abroad so much.
      - GuyM
        
        Not obsessed, more aware that Labour and its cohorts want to “redistribute” from top to bottom as much as they think they can get away with.
        
        I’m afraid that simply means you are not going to get some feeling of “togetherness” between the groups. The working class and underclass want their political representatives to take as much of higher income as they can, so those higher income earners are not going to be chummy with them.
        
        In addition I truly dislike the trademark working class and underclass traits.
        
        I’m very honest about this, resulting in much abuse and attacks on LL, which to use Dave Stone’s phrase below is “water off a ducks back to me”.
        
        I’d simply like you on the left to be equally as honest and stop the pretence that your policies are for “everyone”, they are not. They are designed to benefit your core vote.
        
        As such if your side can give it with “de Pfeffel” and the like it can accept it back with “lower class oiks” etc.
  - Dave Postles
    
    Yeah, bloody onomastics, if you ask me.
Ernest Lynch

How do we know this?
Alan Combe

Just which part of Boris’ outburst is untrue?
- Winston_from_the_Ministry
  
  Ken was not engaged in coitus at the time.
Jonathan Roberts

This will get repeated again and again. And it will only benefit Boris. The first rule of political PR is that you never, ever, ever repeat the accusation against you as they are the words they will cement in people’s minds – especially if the public suspect the accusation to be in some way truthful.
- GuyM
  
  Indeed, anyone who already thinks or suspects Ken is “a f**king liar” will simply have that belief reaffirmed by Boris’ words.
  
  Plus Ken’s campaign will be forever linked to being an implied anti-semitic and a “f**king liar”.
  
  Genius politics from Boris.
ovaljason

Carefully thought out deflection strategy, I’m sure.

No. of articles published by Mark on the substance of debate (inc. Boris’ dodgy police numbers): 0
No. of articles published by Mark in which Boris calls Ken a liar: 1

Poll: LBC 97.3 London Mayoral Election PollWhich candidate did the best in the London Mayoral Debate?Boris Johnson – 59.04%Ken Livingstone – 24.49%Brian Paddick – 8.87%Jenny Jones – 7.6%
- GuyM
  
  Boris’ share pushing towards 60%
- AlanGiles
  
  To be fair LBC is very pro-Tory as are a great number of it’s listeners. Nick Ferrarri’s programme in particular and he usually gets these sort of interviews. If it were left to a fair proportion of their listeners hanging would be restored – for shoplifting.
  - Hugh
    
    If it were left to a fair proportion of the British public hanging would be restored (though probably not for shoplifting, to be fair).
UKAzeri

I am sitting in my office and the opinion is divided along one line… homeowners and renters. Guess who is supporting who?

we need to forget about swingers and start presenting policies that our core vote will support.
Politique

Propaganda. Propaganda. Propaganda. I do not know anybody in their right mind thinks that Ken Livingstone is the right candidate for Mayor. There may be much truth in what Boris says. Ken Livingstone is a fine one to alert individuals of the things that they say. I do believeLivingstone has said some nasty things about society, Jews and gay people in the public sphere. Boris has said it to one person.

Who is more suitable in this case
Winston_from_the_Ministry

At least he did it off camera, unlike the rather embarassing outburt by Tom watson in the HoC.
Arieh Kovler

Not a fair analogy. Ken attacked people who CHOSE to legally avoid tax – not merely the fact that the loopholes existed. Ken said “People who avoid tax are bad and should stop” while himself avoiding tax.

That famous Boris Johnson temper

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