JUST BORIS: A Tale of Blond Ambition (59 page)

Boris has declined to give his own version of events, preferring to dodge questions. However, the balance of probabilities suggests the Mayor opportunistically nudged Blair towards the door, but was astonished when he took the matter into his own hands and resigned the very next day. Freedom of Information
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inquiries reveal that Boris had taken no legal advice on removing Blair – an odd omission for anyone actively contemplating such a radical step. It is also believed no one at Conservative HQ (including David Cameron) had been forewarned either. One senior City Hall official says that although the Mayor was certainly hoping that Blair would eventually go, with his well-known dislike of open confrontation, ‘I’m not sure Boris actually
expected
to get rid of Ian Blair himself. When Blair went, he looked shell-shocked.’ Indeed, a well-placed Tory source is privately clear
about who was really responsible for the departure: ‘Kit [Malthouse] took the lead in manoeuvring Boris and Blair into positions where there was no alternative. It was a clever way of dealing with both of them, not least because we all thought it would be an absolute case of “Boris blinking.”’

At this point Boris refused to say that he had sacked Blair, insisting instead that it had been the Commissoner’s own decision to go. Indeed, at the full Metropolitan Police Authority meeting on the Monday, an uncomfortable-looking mayor was ostentatiously apologetic; he even seemed to support a motion accusing him of usurping his powers in Blair’s dismissal, saying disarmingly: ‘Thank you very much. I don’t disagree with your motion at all.’
³

Crucially, however, the
external
perception that Assassin Boris had dispatched Blair with cool efficiency transformed the Mayor’s reputation outside City Hall. ‘Firing’ a commissioner for the first time in the post’s 180-year history silenced the “Boris is a bumbler” mob overnight; and so it was not long before Boris’s office also referred openly to the ‘sacking of Ian Blair.’ Polls of party members found them ecstatic at this dazzling display of muscular Conservatism. Tory HQ’s initial fears that Boris was a ‘disaster in slow motion’ were swiftly replaced within 48 hours by a new appraisal that he was a steely and focused threat to Labour ministers – and potentially to the Tory leadership too.

Observing how the ‘Boris as Brutus’ tale served him well, the Mayor has remained unforthcoming about the real story. When it was suggested in an interview eight months later that Blair’s departure had been decided on the spur of the moment, rather than as a calculated move, Boris replied with unusual brevity: ‘That supposition is not correct.’A question on why he had omitted to forewarn Cameron was met with the similarly terse: ‘I don’t want to go back into the details of all that.’
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Amid this uncertainty, Blair ironically served Boris’s cause within the Tory party by consistently portraying himself as a victim of the Mayor’s political ruthlessness. Blair also suggests, however, that Boris was prepared to trample over the constitutional niceties (under which the hiring and firing of the Commissioner were the prerogative of the Home Secretary, Jacqui
Smith) and to endanger the independence of the police, all to help him win a ‘private tussle’ with Cameron.
⁵

He is correct that – by accident or design – Boris had indeed upstaged Cameron who was at the time still marooned in the impotence of Opposition, but it also appears to be the case that Boris had once again benefited from other’s misfortunes (or misadventures). As Blair ruefully noted, Boris had now been seen to ‘stamp his authority on the mayoralty’
⁶
but it is equally apparent that someone else almost certainly did the stamping.

Boris now had strategic control of policing in the capital but it was only a matter of weeks before his crime-fighting credibility – and even more, the Police’s political independence under his regime – would be tested to the maximum.

Still under Labour’s stewardship, the Home Office was suffering regular leaks of confidential documents with the culprit obviously enjoying access to the Home Secretary’s private safe. The fact that even a draft letter to Prime Minister Gordon Brown had been intercepted was considered a major security risk. Some of the material was appearing in newspapers with apparent close links to the Conservatives’ immigration spokesman Damian Green. After some 30 incidents over two years, the Civil Service called for an investigation. A mid-ranking civil servant, Christopher Galley, was arrested and admitted that he was connected to prominent Tories, including Green, whom he claimed had asked him to ‘get dirt and damage on Labour’ in the same conversation as job opportunities in the Tory party were discussed (although both men agree that Green never actively encouraged Galley to leak documents).

A Gold Group of eight senior policemen met to decide the highly sensitive question of whether to arrest the MP and legal advice was taken from the Met’s own lawyers. Initially, the group favoured arrest by appointment, but Galley claimed that after he had been released on bail, Green had asked him not to mention the name of another prominent MP involved in the affair: David Davis. With evidence suggesting that Green was attempting to hide his or another’s liaison with Galley the group therefore unanimously voted in favour of a
raid. The Crown Prosecution Service also backed the move. ‘It’s a decision I will defend until the day I die,’ insists Bob Quick, the senior officer in charge. ‘We were in a horrible situation. I wished it would go away, but it wouldn’t, and we were not going to bend the rules either.’

Approval was also sought from Sir Paul Stephenson, the acting commissioner who had replaced Blair, and who, according to Quick, (equally reluctantly) gave it. At 9.55 a.m. on 27 November, Stephenson informed Boris (in his capacity as MPA chair) that an unnamed politician was to be raided that day as part of a major leak inquiry. At 1.19 p.m. Stephenson told Boris who it was, but because Green could not initially be located the arrest did not take place for another 18 minutes. Despite his role as chairman of the MPA and his subsequent denials, according to at least one police officer working on the case the Mayor then attempted to speak to his political colleague, Green.

‘I was told that Boris had phoned Green near the time of the arrest and remain puzzled that this alleged call was not the subject of a subsequent investigation, as it could potentially be a criminal offence,’ confirms Bob Quick, the Commanding Officer. Whether the suspected call came in during or just after the arrest rather than before, Quick is insistent the Mayor could not have known for sure that he was not pre-empting police action or making it possible for evidence to be concealed or destroyed. If Boris did try to call Green soon after learning of the planned raid this could constitute, according to Quick, attempting to assist an offender or impede an arrest under the 1977 Criminal Justice Act. However, the matter was allowed to slip away in the ensuing Conservative party-fuelled furore and during a six-week hiatus called after Damian Green cited Parliamentary privilege, which effectively halted all enquiries.

Indeed, it was not Boris who was the subject of an outburst of public indignation and concern about the conduct of a publicly elected mayor with responsibility for, and powers over, the Met. The flak was directed entirely at the Police for proceeding with Green’s arrest in what has since been described by Quick as, ‘a shitstorm, with the Conservative machinery claiming it was all politically motivated.’ One senior Tory even told the
Guardian
, ‘Bob Quick is behind this.
I’m going to fucking get him.’
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Former shadow home secretary David Davis, whom Galley had been instructed not to identify, claimed the officers’ actions smacked of a ‘police state.’
⁸

Green was detained for nine hours on suspicion of misconduct in public office and his computer hard drive, documents and phone were all seized in searches of his Parliamentary office as well as his Kent home. Allegations were made that the Police had acted in a ‘heavy-handed’ manner. Boris himself geared up the resultant Tory furore (thus helping to direct the spotlight away from him) by putting out a press statement later that night, carried in the
Times
, outlining in ‘trenchant terms’ his ‘grave concern’ as to whether the arrest had been a ‘proportionate’ response. ‘I was surprised Boris used the “proportionate” term,’ recalls Quick. ‘How could he make the calculation if he didn’t know the detail of the evidence?’ Stories now began to appear in certain newspapers distancing the Acting Commissioner, Stephenson (City Hall’s favourite to succeed Blair) from the Green arrest – the saga was becoming toxic for anyone involved.

Boris has conceded only that two days after the arrest his spokesman Guto Harri texted Green with the words ‘Can you talk?’ and that on the following day, despite Green’s continuing status as a potential suspect in a major criminal inquiry, Boris spoke by telephone to the MP himself. Interestingly, he took the precaution of doing so in the company of two of his aides no doubt aware that a call that long after the arrest would not be taken so seriously as one on the day of the arrest itself.

Two police inquiries were duly launched into the handling of the affair. One by the Inspectorate of Constabulary decreed that the use of police resources in this way had been ‘debatable’ while an internal police review concluded Green’s arrest was lawful though ‘not proportionate’ – although Quick insists the review ‘airbrushed out’ key facts reinforcing that the arrest was both proper and proportionate; facts that did not fit the ‘disproportionate’ line initiated by Boris. Considered by many to be one of the finest coppers of his generation and an ex-chief constable of Surrey police, Quick saw this as ‘nothing short of a capitulation by the Met in the face of an
aggressive and unpleasant Tory response; at best, a sop to the Tories and at worst, the result of political pressure to influence the outcome of the investigation.’ In the event neither Green nor the civil servant who admitted handing him the material was charged.

Boris’s intervention was still highly controversial, however, and Len Duvall, former chairman of the MPA, demanded an off icial Standards Board inquiry into his actions. Curiously, this too made no mention of any call on the day of the arrest. Indeed, the inquiry was not even made aware of the allegations of an earlier call. It did find that Boris, while not guilty of breaching the mayoral codes of conduct, should not have contacted Green at all while the police inquiry was still underway and that to have done so was ‘extraordinary and unwise.’
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Boris, meanwhile, was being investigated by a second body – the House of Commons’ Home Affairs Select Committee chaired by the Labour MP Keith Vaz – as part of its inquiry into government leaks. Originally, he had been called to give evidence on 3 February 2009, but on the day itself committee members were not expecting him because of an understanding that he would be too busy dealing with transport chaos caused by heavy snowfall. They were caught on the hoof – and were therefore somewhat under-prepared – when with only a few minutes’ notice Boris came bounding into the room after all. Perhaps as a result he was able to butterfly-dance his way round the MPs’ line of questioning.

Labour’s David Winnick, while objecting to Green’s arrest, was nonetheless aghast that ‘one politician [Boris] had been warned in advance by the Police that another politician was to be arrested.’ Winnick claims to have heard ‘rumours’ and ‘suspicions’ that Boris had made use of the intelligence on the planned raid to contact Green beforehand and therefore asked Boris: ‘When you learned what was going to happen … you contacted him? Boris replied: ‘No. Certainly not before his arrest’ but said nothing about whether he had made any calls on that day, merely adding that he had had a ‘conversation’ with Green on the Monday, as was well known. He also insisted that he had not talked to David Cameron on the day of the arrest, but then changed his evidence and admitted he
had
spoken ‘briefly’ to the
Conservative Leader at 3 p.m. at a memorial service for the murdered schoolboy Damilola Taylor at Southwark Cathedral. Just when the net appeared to be closing in, he quickly claimed the conversation with Cameron had been cut short because of ‘the sensitivities of our great leader’ Gordon Brown. The Prime Minister, he told the committee, had been ‘appalled’ at the idea of sitting next to the Mayor of London and insisted he was moved further away. Downing Street denied any such objection but the tale (whether true or not) provided a colourful distraction from what had been discussed with Cameron and once again allowed Boris to fly out of trouble.

Adding to the confusion, Boris remembered (but only once safely outside the committee) that he had also called Cameron about the Green affair shortly after the arrest itself. But by then, of course, it was too late for him to be questioned about it. Altogether, it was a bravura performance. As sketchwriters and supporters alike noticed at the time, these ‘lapses’ mattered not one jot. ‘Boris had got away without even a scratch. He was so relaxed, he didn’t even feel the need to muss up his hair,’ wrote Simon Hoggart in the
Guardian
. Paul Goodman noted on
ConservativeHome
that the ‘Damian Green imbroglio,’ was another instance of ‘Boris chalk[ing] up’ one of his ‘many Houdini-like feats.’

However, it was not to be quite so easy even for a latterday master of political escapology. Vaz described the ‘four different accounts’ in Boris’s testimony as a ‘very serious matter’ and the Mayor was then asked for clarification. There followed a soon-to-be notorious telephone conversation on 4 February between Vaz and Boris, during which the Mayor exploded with anger that the matter of his conflicting evidence was being pursued. Minutes of the call were later passed on to the press and the result was a banner headline ‘MAYOR BORIS IN F-WORD TIRADE’ across the front page of the
Evening Standard
.

To those who have worked with Boris, and seen him react to anyone who has crossed him, this aggressive language came as no surprise but it was certainly a departure from the genial joker image still entertained by the majority of voters. Yet Vaz recalls that ‘F-gate’ actually turned out to be useful to Boris. ‘All the screaming and
shouting became the story,’ he notes, ‘so I do wonder whether it was a diversion tactic.’ Meanwhile, devoted fans argued the affair merely served to enhance Boris’s loveable rogue persona. And once again, of course, the squalls subsided. Vaz was not the sort of public figure who commanded national outpourings of sympathy and Boris’s tantrum was soon seen as merely providing colour (in stark contrast to public horror at Gordon Brown’s reported outbursts). The Home Affairs Committee’s report barely mentioned Boris’s role and reserved most of its criticism for other parties to the story, attacking what it deemed to be heavy-handed policing and the civil servants who it said had exaggerated the damage caused by the leaks: the butterfly had fluttered away.