Mark Pack

Blunders at Boris’s crime launch

By | Thu 14th February 2008 - 8:33 am

The Telegraph:

Boris’s criminal blunder
It wouldn’t be Boris without a bit of a shambles.

and The Mirror, picking up on Boris’s past involvement with Darius Guppy:

Bumbling Boris can’t get his story straight
It seemed like a reasonable question to a man who wants trusting with solving London’s crime ills.

“Are you sorry you helped a friend plan a violent assault on an enemy?” I asked Boris Johnson (in a few more words) at the launch of his crime policy.

I was referring to the taped conversation of Tory mayor candidate Boris and old Oxford university dining club pal (and convicted fraudster) Darius Guppy, in which they plotted to nobble someone who had crossed Guppy…

To rapturous applause from the Tory faithful, he ignored the question and instead called on the Mirror to apologise first for a front page story we had supposedly run about his campaign HQ.

One problem. That was a Guardian story.

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4 Comments

  • Stuart 14th Feb '08 - 9:38pm

    Is there someone I can read more about this story (the one abour Boris’s taped conversation)? I didn’t know about this, and sounds like something a Londoner should know about.

  • Stuart 14th Feb '08 - 9:39pm

    Obviously, I meant “somewhere I can read more about” not “someone I can read more about”!!!

  • Terry Gilbert 15th Feb '08 - 9:44pm

    Its an old scandal from the 1990s, Stuart. Guppy was recorded telephoning Boris Johnson and asking him for the address of News of the World journalist Stuart Collier who had reported on Earl Spencer’s private life. Spencer, Guppy and Johnson were all friends from Eton. Guppy had wished to retaliate by assaulting the reporter. On the tape, Johnson agreed to help after being reassured that the reporter would not be seriously injured. Collier was not actually attacked. The tape transcript was serialised in The Guardian’s diary column.
    Johnson is a pretty unsavoury character, in my view, behind all the buffoonery. Guppy has been described as a ‘vicious convicted fraudster’.

  • Hywel Morgan 15th Feb '08 - 10:04pm

    Have I Got News For You explored this in more detail

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