Labour demands apology from Boris Johnson over protest march remarks

Published by Jon Land for 24dash.com in Central Government and also in Local Government

Labour today demanded that London Mayor Boris Johnson retract a claim that its leader Ed Miliband was "satisfied" by the scenes of violence surrounding the TUC March for the Alternative in the capital on Saturday.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Mr Johnson criticised the Labour leader for failing to spell out in his speech to demonstrators what cuts he would impose if he was prime minister.

And the Conservative Mayor said it appeared that the only plan Mr Miliband and his shadow chancellor Ed Balls have for solving the country's fiscal problems was to "get a load of aggressive crusties and Lefties" to cause "argy-bargy" in London.

Mr Johnson wrote: "We have finally heard Labour's response to the fiscal crisis bequeathed to the nation by Gordon Brown. The plan is to get a load of aggressive crusties and Lefties to attack the Ritz hotel, to storm Fortnum's, and to cause so much argy-bargy that 4,500 police officers are obliged to waste their time (and our money) in putting out the bonfires and controlling events as peacefully as they can.

"That's Labour's long-awaited master-plan for kick-starting the economy. Isn't it grand?"

He added: "The sad thing is that in spite of their crocodile tears, Balls and Miliband will feel quietly satisfied by the disorder - a token, they will tell themselves, of the public feeling that is out there to exploit.

"They will be content to see the police being unfairly attacked on all sides, for being too passive (the Right-wing press) or too brutal (the Guardian) and they will continue to blather on while saying nothing about what they would cut themselves."

Labour's deputy leader Harriet Harman said: "This is typical of Boris Johnson - thoughtless, shallow and plain wrong.

"He should withdraw this disgraceful allegation immediately.

"Instead of attacking the Labour leader, Boris Johnson should be listening to the hundreds of thousands of people who marched peacefully."

A senior Labour source added: "Johnson's remarks are an insult to the true voice of Saturday's demonstration - the hundreds of thousands of people in Hyde Park who protested peacefully against the Government's cuts.

"Neither they nor the Labour leadership wanted their message from the mainstream of Britain to be obscured by violence and criminal acts."