Boris Johnson today refused to say whether George Osborne had bought his silence with a £93 million “bung” for policing, but insisted it was his job to lobby the Government for funding.
In the latest extract from his explosive book, Lord Ashcroft claimed the Mayor won the deal in 2011 when the Chancellor rang him before the Tory conference with a plea not to “make mischief”.
The Conservative peer alleged that Mr Johnson had asked: “What price?” before suggesting £90 million for policing in London, allowing him to make lavish spending pledges when he ran for re-election the following year.
Today Mr Johnson told the Standard: “I never talk about conversations with colleagues but it’s certainly the case that one of my jobs is to lobby for proper funding for London policing.”
The Mayor said he was concerned cuts in police funding in this year’s Autumn Statement, expected to be in the region of £800 million, would affect frontline policing.
He vowed to continue talks with Mr Osborne over the Met, which has already made savings of £600 million. “It’s important that people make their case powerfully to him about their particular areas.
Everybody accepts the police have got to find economies, the question is how far can you go without reducing front line numbers, and that’s what we want to prevent,” he said.
In the biography, Call Me Dave, written with journalist Isabel Oakeshott, Lord Ashcroft claims the Prime Minister and Chancellor feared that Mr Johnson could ambush the conference as he did in 2009 by calling for a referendum on EU membership.
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