The Scoop

Boris Johnson tells taxi drivers to jump off Tower Bridge

Adam Bienkov | Tuesday 9 October, 2012 17:02

There wasn’t a great deal new in Boris Johnson’s conference speech today.

His old joke about selling cake to France was wheeled out for the umpteenth time as was his antique spiel about saving London from Chateauneuf du Pape swilling, semi-reformed Marxists.

There was one addition to his stump speech however which I’m amazed hasn’t been picked up elsewhere.

Talking about taxi drivers who protested over Olympic lane restrictions, he said:

“The taxi drivers were blockading the West End. One of them actually handed the keys of his cab to a police guy and jumped off Tower Bridge. I wish some of the others could have done the same frankly but never mind.”

For a Mayor of London to call for taxi drivers to throw themselves off a bridge is pretty remarkable.

Especially considering how badly relations between City Hall and many cabbies have deteriorated in recent years.

When Labour’s mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone cracked a joke about hanging bankers during the election campaign all hell broke loose.

Yet when the current Mayor of London tells cabbies to throw themselves off a bridge, it’s barely even reported.

The press often talk about Boris “getting away with murder” as if it’s a natural law, rather than a direct result of them letting him get away with it.

His drown-a-cabbie comments are just one small but telling example.

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