Not Born Yesterday.....an exclusive interview with new London Mayor Boris Johnson

In power for just seventy-two hours, new London Mayor Boris Johnson is quickly coming to terms with the landslide to Bonkers. Not Born Yesterday puts him on the spot, and discovers a whole new BJ.

nby: Mayor Johnson....

BJ: ...er, look....Boris, please...Boris.

n: OK, Mayor Boris - the media have concentrated their attack on your campaign chiefly in terms of its zero-tolerance content. How do you feel about that?

b: Well of course it's perfectly monstrous. You see, the trouble with our knee-jerk media is, they see everything two-dimensionally, whereas my approach is more inclusively holistic.

n: Can you give me an example of that?

b: Absolutely. Much neglected, for instance, has been my desire to make London old-people friendly.

n: Yes, quite - how would you do that though?

b: By having hundreds of heavily armed policemen near to old people wherever they might be. And of course, by allowing the policemen to shoot people quite a lot.

n: I see....and who exactly would they shoot?

b: Well this is my point, do you see? The media sound off about my desire to shoot muggers and Hoodies and all the rest of it, but my vision is much broader than that.

n: Er...right, so - who else would the police shoot?

b: Old people of course - and the quicker the better. I envisage wholesale slaughter of people who prey on old people, but at the same time it's also important to shoot their victims as well. This tackles the whole problem, and is thus entirely inclusive. I'm a great believer in treating all Londoners equally.

n: Yes, errrm...and you've also said, have you not, that you'd like to get all Londoners moving again - how would you do that exactly?

b: By having hundreds of heavily armed policemen near to buses and Tube stations wherever they may be. And also on buses. Upstairs and down, collecting tickets at gunpoint.

n: And....how will this get London moving?

b: Look here, it's not that difficult surely: once there are guns pointed at them, all these ghastly Yardie people with their knives and so forth will run like the clappers. And thus London will be moving again. And of course, those who don't run hard enough will be shot. This will thus help solve the problem of our affordable housing shortage in the Capital. I have promised to do something about this, and here we have an excellent way to cut crime, get people moving and release housing space from just the one policy.

n: I see. But surely your policy in this area also included more cyclists who would reduce London's carbon footprint - how would that fit in?

b: By having hundreds of heavily armed policemen near to cyclists wherever they may be - going the wrong way down one-way streets, jumping lights, riding on the pavement and generally behaving in a thoroughly reprehensible manner. And that's just the police. They will...

n: Shoot the cyclists?

b:....precisely, and thus make more room for well-bred cyclists who know how to behave. Like me. And my friends. But if course, all cyclists must be able to feel safe on the Capital's roads....

n: ....when they're not being shot by the police?

b: Well if they behave like decent middle class, law-abiding people they won't be shot will they? No, they can ride about safe in the knowledge that I will have abolished these appalling bendy buses which kill cyclists right left and centre every day.

n: Yes - that was a popular policy. You're going to have a design competition for a new Twenty-first Century Routemaster, is that right?

b: That's correct, yes. Or to give it its full name, the new Routemaster Sedan Chair.

n: Sedan chair?

b: Absolutely - another example of me as Mayor multi-tackling problems. These sedan chairs will be carried by lots of darkies who will, as it were, carry the rest of us round. Thus you see we can, at a stroke, solve the problem of unemployment among the fecklessly malingering classes, replace bus lanes with sedan chair lanes half as wide, and reduce emissions so much we can use the extra space to get motorists back on our roads again - which is, after all, why the roads were built in the first place - for cars.

n: Not for buses?

b: Of course not. I mean good grief, if that had been the case, the roads would've been twice as wide.

n: Yes, I see what you mean. But you are going to keep the congestion charge?

b: Oh, absolutely. But at the moment it's petty and vindictive as one would expect from the Old Labour Left. So I will reform it.

n: Uh-huh - and I'm guessing here, but this will involve the police?

b: Quite right. I see this issue as being fundamentally about freedom, do you see? So there will be a 90% reduction in the congestion charge, with every motorist welcome to once again enter our fine city at minimal cost.

n: And the police - will they shoot the drivers?

b: What a bizarre suggestion. Are you sure you're from this...what is it again....No Bum Recently?

n: Not Born Yesterday.

b: Hum. Right. Well the police most certainly will not be shooting any motorists on my watch. On the whole I think motorists are generally good eggs, and that's why I'm sure they'll be up for my Big Idea.

n: Shooting pedestrians?

b: Look here, I'm not sure you're taking this entirely seriously - you're nothing to do with The Independent are you?

n: Nothing at all, no. Tell me your big idea.

b: Yes, well. It's very simple: car sharing. From the start of next year, it will be a criminal offence to drive alone in a car in central London. And there shall be no exceptions: from the highest to the lowest, every Londoner will have to obey this new law. Even me.

n: Well, as an idea it's long overdue.Tell me, how will it work?

b: I'm sorry?

n: You know - how will the cars be, so to speak, shared?

b: Oh right, I see. Well the usual way when cars are shared you know - a driver in the front, and a passenger in the back.

n: And how will the, erm, drivers...you know - how will they choose their passengers?

b: You really are being excessively dim about this. The passengers will choose the drivers for Heaven's sake.

n: Er....so who will this driver be then?

b: The chauffeur.

n: The chauffeur?

b: Of course. And you see, the police will recognise him as a bona fide chauffeur, because he'll be in the usual regalia one expects. As I say, this law will apply as much to me as it does to you.

n: But I haven't got a chauffeur. What happens when people like me drive into London?

b: You will be shot by the police.

n: I hope you don't mind me saying this Mr Mayor, but the police do seem to loom rather large in your plans.

b: Naturally they do. They've spent far too much time these last few years filling out silly bureaucratic forms when it's clear to anyone of sound mind that what they're especially good at is shooting people. I mean look here - how many people do you know who can hit one head eighty-five times? That's astonishing marksmanship, and we should be making more use of it.

n: But they're going to be killing an awful lot of people.....

b: I'd like to take you up on that, if I may. In the first place, perhaps they will - but have you walked around London recently? Been in the Tubes at rush-hour?

n: Well no, I live in....

b: Well there you are then - but I have. Over the last six months, I've fought my way along more thronging streets and ponging tube trains than you could shake a stick at dear boy, and it's clear to me that London has the most appalling overcrowding problem.

n: Yes but that's no reason to shoot them all, I mean....

b: I won't. We won't. The police won't. No. There will be no shoot to kill policy as long as I'm Mayor. We shall merely adopt a Shoot to Kill Pillocks policy. And in the second place, motorists will do anything to retain the freedom to use their cars - including hiring a chauffeur. This will halve the number of cars needed, reduce the stress of important executives, cut the cost of life insurance policies and create yet more employment for the servant class. I've thought the whole thing through you know.

n: I can see that, yes. But with Congestion Charge income cut by 90% and far more police....

b:....needing far more ammunition....

n:...quite....I suppose the inevitable question one has to ask is, where's all the money going to come from?

b: I'm glad you've raised this central point, because sad though it may be, the need for filthy lucre is ever-present in our contemporary world. So I have an astonishingly lateral idea to plug the financial gap here.

n: Which is?

b: To have hundreds of heavily armed policemen near to wherever there is criminality, seeking it out. In so doing, the long-term need for the Bobby on the beat will be entirely removed.

n: Because the police will shoot the criminals?

b: Certainly not, that is a disgraceful suggestion. You're not part of that Tribune mob are you?

n: No, I'm not, but....

b: Well that's alright then. No no no....this is a civilised country which - in its at times inexplicable wisdom - decided to abolish the death penalty forty years ago. My plan is of an infinitely more subtle nature.

n: I'm not sure I understand.

b: Of course you don't, but that's alright because I am the Mayor and you're not. Consider: what is the fundamental flaw in our current treatment of criminals?

n: We don't catch any of them.

b: That too - but more importantly, we put them in prison where they cost a vast amount of money - taxpayers' money.

n: I agree, but if you're not going to....

b: ....in a free market environment we must see criminals as a resource to be exploited, just like anyone else. We in Great Britain have led the world for several decades in our output of violent criminal Underclass cretins - so it's time to put them to work.

n: Doing what?

b: Stealing.

n: Stealing?

b: Well what else are thieves any good at? Look, I am a liberal in such matters: nobody is good for nothing. Speaking for myself, apart from one ill-advised duffing up plot with Darius, I lack basic experience in how to organise even the simplest crime. But all over London, there are countless Bill Sykes going at it hammer and tongs. So we must put them to good use.

n: Er......how exactly?

b: Well look - have I or have I not always said that I can reach out to both ends of the political spectrum?

n: You have, but....

b: Well then - hang on to your hat: I propose to nationalise London criminals.

n: Nationalise? How can you....

b: Listen - let me tell you where we've been going wrong on this pilfering question: we're not getting a cut.

n: A cut?

b: Our rake-off - what those hoods in films about Chicago always call 'a piece of the action'. I pledge that by late Autumn, criminals will be allowed to commit as many robberies, muggings, frauds and burglaries as they like. The only difference is that they will be working for us.

n: But......that's just going to be anarchy....

b: Certainly not - it will represent a major redistribution of wealth, but without any of the armies of idle civil servants which normally accompany such well-meaning and muddled ideas.

n: Aaaah - now I get it....a sort of modern-day Robin Hood's merry men - rob from the rich and give to the poor.....

b: Well in a manner of speaking, but you see Mr Hood had things entirely the wrong way round.

n: He did?

b: Absolutely. Our nationalised swag-men will steal from the poor.

n: But, but.....that's an outrageous idea.

b: Not at all - and I must say here, that as a man who is committed to political ecumenicalism, we all owe a debt of gratitude to Gordon Brown for blazing a trail here. Let us give credit where credit is due: nobody in history has fleeced the poor in quite the same admirably efficient manner as the current Prime Minister.

n: But Brown has inadvertantly taxed the poor, whereas you....

b: Look, we must go beyond these outmoded ideas about raising capital. It's my job as Mayor to think outside the box.......if one taxes the poor, in the end (being feckless and transient and fly-by-night) they simply don't pay. Then all we have is yet more appallingly obese Waynettas filling our expensive prisons. But what do you suppose would happen if we steal from the poor?

n: There'd be a revolution?

b: Not while there are hundreds of heavily armed police shooting them there won't.

n: Er....they'll starve?

b: Correct. When Dickens said "the poor will always be with us", he was of course talking within a nineteenth century frame of reference. With modern weapons technology and advanced burglary violence, there is no reason at all why they should be with us for very long at all, let alone forever.

n: So, um, where is all this going to get us?

b: Well speaking for myself, I'm pretty certain it'll get me re-elected.

n: Yes, but is that fair?

b: Fair? Good Lord man, look at what I'm offering: a 100% reduction in the poor, emptied prisons, increased revenues with no new taxes, a massive reduction in policing costs, and a whole class of previously anti-social ne'r-do-wells at last working for the good of the community. All this, and not a social worker in sight.

n: Yes, well....when you look at it like that....

b: Quite. You know, I think I may have misjudged you. Have you ever thought about a job in local government?

n: Not as such, no....

b: Only....it's just that, with my commitment to inclusivity, you might be just the sort of cove who could help me, aah, you know - persuade some of those on the receiving end of these radical ideas that in the end they'd be very much in their own interests.

n: Hmm. Well, I'd need to be reassured about your social commitment.

b: £150,00 a year with a review after six months?

n: Sounds good to me.

b: Good man. I'll get my people to draw something up....