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Boris’s £4000 taxi bill

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Boris Johnson’s image as an environment loving cyclist suffered a serious dent today with the publication of expenses showing he’s spent more than £4000 on taxis since taking office.

The expense claims, which are contained in a written answer to Assembly Members, show Johnson made his first taxpayer funded taxi journey on 3rd May 2008, the day the election results were announced.

Despite making much of his cycling credentials, the Mayor opted to take a taxi for a return journey between City Hall and Elephant and Castle on 15/05/08 at a cost of £99.50. The Mayor could have made a number of cheaper journeys by taking the Tube from London Bridge, or any of several buses which run from the London Bridge area to Elephant and Castle.

Use of the much more expensive taxi journey is at odds with Johnson’s repeated assertions that he intends to run a ‘best value’ Greater London Authority. Under GLA rules, the use of taxis is only acceptable “when public transport is unavailable or impractical”.

The figures also show the Mayor incurred costs to the taxpayer of more than £320 for two claims listed as ‘Newspaper delivered to Mayor’s home’ between 25th May and 2nd August 2008.

A spokesman for the Mayor said: “The Mayor has newspapers delivered to his home so he can read them early in the morning to ensure he is fully briefed before he attends his first meeting or event. For the first two months of his administration, the Mayor was advised to claim the newspapers on expenses until the GLA could set up an account, through its normal procurement systems.”

MayorWatch has been told Johnson’s predecessor “didn’t have the same arrangement.”.

On the issue of cab fares, the spokesman said: “The Mayor’s preferred mode of transport is his bike which accounts for the vast majority of his personal and official journeys.”

“For greater distances he tries to use public transport. On occasions however over the past 14 months taking taxis has been unavoidable. That is very much the exception and the figures show he takes fewer than three taxis a week on average.”

“Most of the taxis in this bill were booked in the first few months of his administration when he attended a huge number of events often going to two and three in a row on a tight schedule.”

“His use of taxis has declined steadily from the start of this year. The latest figures show only 11 taxis were booked between January and March.

Comments

  2. I am incapacitated with laughter – I am finding it difficult to hold my sides together whilst typing!

    Where are all the Boris supporters? Have they all left the building?

    Good to see Boris is helping restore the faith in British politics – along with all those MP’s who have been on the fiddle for years.

    I can’t understand why it costs £99 from City Hall to Elephant and Castle – surely that must be a return journey. I can get a black cab, after 12, to Wimbledon for less than that – they must really see him coming.

    I shall be very keen to hear Boris’s response – I’ll bet you the cost of a taxi fare from City Hall to Islington that it includes the words ‘Balderdash’ and ‘Piffle’ but no real explanation for the fares.

    The electorate of London really are prize mugs – “Elected representative abuses expenses” – who would have thought this would be headline of the year.

    Maybe the only surprise headline this year will be one that says “Elected representative NOT abusing expenses – shock”

    If there ever was a good argument for Anarchy and the absence of establishment then this year has provided so many examples both in national and local Government.

  3. I’m not too bothered about the newspapers, although Lord knows he can afford to pay for them himself.

    The taxis are a different matter though. By all means he should take them if he needs to, but he shouldn’t make us pay £237 for a 9 mile journey. If he wants to waste money, he should waste his own.

  4. As tax payer’s , we should see those Receipts without delay , so that we can verify that such enormous sums were paid for those journies . If receipts are lost or delayed Boris Johnson should prove that these journies were taken with varification by witnesses , preferably the driver . Has Boris not learnt , to let the train take the strain , if not , he can always get on his bike.

  6. Hi James

    Interestingly enough, City Hall told me: “A cab was ordered on this occasion to get the Mayor swiftly to a tennis event at Old Lillian Baylis School with his Commissioner for Sport Kate Hoey.” but as I understand it, that’s in Lambeth Walk.

    Either way, the reason for the trip isn’t important IMO, £99 for a journey by cab a 343 or 35 bus would have cost £1 on is hardly delivering best value for Londoners – a key claim of Boris’s mayoralty.

  7. Martin,

    Your bus route and fare knowledge is exceptional.

    There is a valid point behind this which doesn’t relate to the cost of the journey by cab, it’s to do with understanding what it’s like to be an ‘ordinary Londoner’.

    If the mayor (or any London MP) actually had to wait for up to an hour for a bus in the pouring rain, or be stuck in a tube in the hot and sweaty summer, or been late for countless meetings due to transport failings – then their priorities for London would be very different to what they are at the moment.

    This is why transport is always low down the priority list for most Government (local or National) representatives. If I took taxi’s everywhere or was driven by limo then I wouldn’t be able to see what the big problem is with transport that makes nearly every single Londoner wince when you mention it.

    Until they live like us – they can never truly represent us.

    The Mayor should be living in a crappy estate in a bad part of London and having to catch a vandalised bus with aggressive youths abusing old ladies to work every day – and then perhaps they might start making policies that actually make a difference to peoples lives.

    In addition to this, the constant pampering of our leaders (like the Mayor) and raising his level of importance to ‘god like status’ – simply makes them (more) arrogant and less empathetic to the people they Govern.

    I have been living in London for the last 8 years and in that time I have only restorted to using a taxi twice (for fares over £3) – one was when I was stranded in the City at 3:30am in the pouring rain with no coat and the other when there was a tube strike and I had to get to an interview on time. The photo op with Jaqui Smith and Ian Blair is not what I would constitute as ‘desperately important to Londoners’. I’m sure 99% of Londoners wouldn’t have noticed if Boris wasn’t in the picture and the other 1% wouldn’t care!

  8. How can it costs £99 to go from the Elephant to City Hall?! It cost just under £50 to go from Hammersmith to Hackney (at rush hour)!!!!

  9. Boris has some way to go to catch up with Brian Coleman’s use of Taxis but he seems to be running a close second!

    Of course this is a cumulative total but nevertheless I am surprised the London Assembly’s Audit Panel hasn’t picked up on this. I imagine Navin Shah (Labour) and Caroline Pidgeon (Lib Dem) would derive great glee from pointing out the Mayor’s profligacy in this regard.

    Maybe they already have and I just haven’t seen it reported. The Audit Panel doesn’t usually attract much of an audience!

  11. How can anyone justify paying a taxi , cad or whatever to wait for a return fare at The Elephant and Castle. At any time during the day or evening a taxi will pass by The Elephant and Castle within seconds , maybe on the odd occasion you will have to wait a minute or two which is rare at that particular location . For this reason I find it hard to believe that this claim was put in , and therefore it should be fully looked into .

  12. Leo,

    I completely agree.

    Even if you didn’t do as you suggested, most black cabs will come back for you for the return trip as it’s in their interests to get the fare in these economic conditions.

    We’re back to the MP expenses saga – which is worse, the fact that the rules allow these claims, or the fact that the people claiming clearly have no moral conscience when it comes to spending public money.

    I can guarantee if Boris was making a personal visit (and having to pay for it himself) – there is no way on earth he would leave the meter running on the cab.

    However because it’s not his money there is an attitude of ‘so what – it’s only public money’ – just as the MP’s have had with expenses.

    Meanwhile thousands of Londoners scrimp and save to get through the hard times.

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