Andrew Dismore

Dear Editor,

 

Your report (12/9/13) of Boris Johnson’s outburst when he told me to “get stuffed” when I challenged him over his  fire service cuts at Mayor’s Question Time did not give the full picture. His intemperate response was not so much over the impact of the cuts, which are of course serious at a time when fire deaths in London have been rising on his watch, but over my reminding him of his broken pre-election promise and the way he misled the public to get elected..

 

Three months before his election, on  25 January 2012, Boris  Johnson said in public at the London Assembly  “under this mayor there will be absolutely no reductions in fire cover”. Yet within weeks of his  election he was demanding exactly such  cuts in fire cover, which have resulted in the fire brigade’s decision last week, on Boris Johnson’s bullying  direction backed by the  threat of legal action, to cut 10 fire stations, 14 fire engines, and 552 firefighter jobs..

 

What the Mayor did not like was being reminded of his clearly broken promise. If anybody was being referred to the taxidermists, it was Boris Johnson himself  by  the response to the public consultation which was overwhelmingly against these dangerous cuts, with 94 per cent of people opposed to them, and whom he has ignored.  Boris Johnson  cannot control his temper and when he is faced with the truth, he lashes out. He needs to start behaving like a Mayor and to listen the wishes of Londoners.

 

Yours sincerely

Andrew Dismore