Did Mr Mair steer the right course with the Mayor? That Boris Johnson interview; a wasted opportunity?

I was getting on with my chores yesterday morning - which is pretty much what I do every morning - so I missed, what is turning out to be, a much talked about interview between Eddie Mair and the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, on BBC One's 'The Andrew Marr Show'.

I have since listened to the interview  on iPlayer and,  more interestingly, tried to read as many as possible of the public comments posted against the newspaper articles that the interview has spawned.  

I am not going to go into details about the above mentioned BBC encounter, suffice to say that towards the end of the conversation, Mr Johnson indicates that he felt the interview had taken a different course from that which he was expecting:

"...thought I was coming on to talk about the budget and housing in London"

Well, the EM/BJ Q and A session certainly didn't cover much about the Mayor's jobs and housing targets, and his potential willingness to intervene on behalf of applicants.  To find out more about that, readers will need to pop over to the link here to catch this written account of an interview by the Editor of Planning, Richard Garlick.

The account begins:

'...Boris Johnson may present himself as an amiably unrehearsed public speaker, but he is not too proud to repeat his best gags. One, which became familiar to journalists following him around the Mipim property conference in France earlier this month, would follow his boast that London's population had risen by more than 600,000 people during his time as mayor. At that point his brow would furrow. "Nothing to do with me personally, of course," he would say, worriedly, to roars of laughter from his audience.'

The article then continues by giving details of an interview, at Mipim, with the deputy mayor of London for planning, Sir Edward Lister.

It seems that the Majoral team has big plans and the teams's big plans will need a big boost of cash, In Sir Edward's words, "We are really trying to line this all up for a big bid to the spending review in the summer."


Will it be a question of, 'If lots of money goes to London where will that leave the rest?'


And how will this affect those living in the areas affected?


Perhaps Mr Mair should have focused on the housing in London after all...