The Labour party have complained to City Hall’s monitoring officers after Boris Johnson converted the official Mayor of London twitter account into a personal account, complete with link to his campaign website.
On Tuesday Johnson, or someone acting on his behalf, tweeted: “Day 1 of official election period! No City Hall resources in use, so all Tweets until 3 May are from my phone or @BackBoris2012 team.”
In an email to officials, London Assembly Member Len Duvall writes:
“My understanding is that this twitter account was established by the Authority and belongs to the Office of the Mayor of London, and has been maintained since its inception by GLA resources. As such, this account does not belong to the current Mayor of London, Boris Johnson.”
Duvall asks for the matter to be treated as “a matter of urgency”.
At last week’s Mayor’s Question Time session Johnson had to be repeatedly warned about attempts to enter a campaign document into the debate.
He has previously faced accusations of using City Hall’s council tax precept information to campaign and routinely uses Transport for London images on his campaign website.
Johnson has previously “given guidance” about the account’s use following an earlier complaint.
IN 2008 he accused then Mayor Ken Livingstone of “using every branch of City Hall to push his electoral agenda.”
The account has been repeatedly publicised on official City Hall publicity materials:
The disputed Twitter account as it previously appeared:
A GLA spokesperson said: “Boris Johnson has decided it would not be appropriate during the pre-election period for him to be tweeting as Mayor of London. He has therefore made it clear to all his followers that he will now be tweeting under his own name outside of City Hall. Anyone who no longer wishes to follow his tweets will be reminded repeatedly that they can unsubscribe with one click of the mouse. @mayoroflondon can be revived by whoever is elected on May 3.”
A statement on Johnson’s re-election site says: “As some of you may have noticed, earlier today Boris changed the name of his Twitter account from @MayorofLondon to @BorisJohnson. While the name of the account may have changed, rest assured that the account is still – and has always been – controlled by Boris.
“No City Hall resources will be used to update or maintain the account – that would be against the rules. Given we’re now in the official election period, this change is being made so there can be no question of Boris using official resources to campaign. Of course, those who no longer wish to follow the account are welcome to “unfollow” at any time.”
On Tuesday evening the following tweet was posted to the account:
“To be clear- @borisjohnson will only be used for discussing mayoral duties. To follow me on the campaign trail, follow @backboris2012”
Despite the claim, Johnson or his campaign team have been posting campaign related news to the account:
