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What’s City Hall for? Spoofs but not campaigning, says Boris

January 3, 2012 by Martin Hoscik

City Hall is available for spoofs, but not campaigning
The Standard’s Diary brings the news that Boris Johnson quashed plans by Labour rival Ken Livingstone and chums to use London’s Living Room for a fares related campaign event.

According to the paper, Johnson “decided that it would be inappropriate to allow the booking to go ahead in light of its timing in relation to the impending 2012 mayoral and Assembly elections.”

A spokesperson for the Mayor insisted he “has no intention of using City Hall for pre-election party political purposes, so does not expect others to do so.”

On this I agree with Boris, no-one should be using the publicly funded City Hall for campaigning. It’s just a shame his purism doesn’t extend to the use of Transport for London’s images and videos.

As eagle-eyed Channel 4 viewers might have spotted, Boris was however happy for the channel’s hacking spoof to be filmed in the building.

Boris is “on the verge” of taking over as the regulator of a police force which failed to properly investigate the phone hacking he once dismissed as “codswallop” and which is now consuming huge sums of public money re-doing the job.

Some might think the Mayor allowing his building to be used as the location for a send-up was at best unwise.

Team Boris on the other hand seem quite proud that giving the go-ahead netted them £4,132 for the biscuit fund.

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Filed Under: 2012 London Elections, Martin Hoscik Tagged With: 2012 London Election

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