Although his career’s been marked by scandal, controversy and plenty of gaffes, his popularity never wanes. London Mayor, Boris Johnson, talks to Leigh from Melbourne about his political life.
Transcript
LEIGH SALES PRESENTER: The current election campaign is amply demonstrating how desperate politicians generally are to avoid anything but carefully stage-managed events or saying anything off message.
One politician who seemingly bucks that tendency time and time again is the London Mayor, Boris Johnson.
His career’s been marked by scandal, controversy, and by his own admission, plenty of gaffes, but his popularity rarely seems to take a hit and even some of his political enemies find his shambolic persona endearing.
Boris Johnson’s in Australia to deliver the keynote address at the Melbourne Writers Festival tomorrow night and he joined me from Melbourne earlier.
See the video here
Boris Johnson, what do you think of the degree of stage management of modern political campaigns?
BORIS JOHNSON, MAYOR OF LONDON: I think voters are very sophisticated, Leigh. I think they can see through too much stage management and they get very fed up when they endlessly hear the same old super-masticated message. You’ve got to go off message sometimes, and I think people like that.
LEIGH SALES: Politicians often seem scared to go off message though.
BORIS JOHNSON: Yes. I mean, I think the crucial thing sometimes is to know what the message is before you can go off it, if you see what I mean. One of the lessons I’ve learnt in politics is, you know, you’ve gotta – it is perfectly true: you’ve gotta have a thing that you’re gonna say and then ya gotta keep saying it until you’re exhausted with saying it, otherwise the voters simply won’t know what you’re selling. But at the same time, ya gotta realise there are millions of people who are following politics, or who are following the news, who are just fed up with hearing the same old stuff and they’re gonna want to hear something a little bit different. And so that’s why, you know, maybe I do strange things like going on Top Gear or whatever and I would recommend that to other politicians.
LEIGH SALES: As a politician, is the desire to be liked a help or a hindrance?
BORIS JOHNSON: Well, it’s – obviously it’s the cruel deformity of politicians that they do want popularity, but on the other hand, popularity is not a bad thing to have when it comes to winning elections. And so I think it’s forgivable, but what politicians have got to do is take the tough, short-term decisions, or medium-term decisions that are gonna be right in the long term. And in the end, that – popularity is there, it’s not an asset to be – just to be sat on and hoarded. It’s gotta be – political capital’s gotta be used to do the difficult things. You can see governments around the world have got to do that. We’ve gone through a long period of binge. I mean, Australia’s been lucky in a way that you missed out on some of the real impact of the Global Financial Crisis, but in Britain and around other parts of the world and particularly in the eurozone, we’ve gotta take some very, very tough short-term decisions for long-term benefit and that means politicians have got to be willing to incur unpopularity.
LEIGH SALES: Do you think that in Western democracies like Australia and the UK that too much of an entitlement mentality has built up?
BORIS JOHNSON: Yeah, I do, I do. And I think that that is why it’s essential to reform the welfare state and to – that’s what is happening now in the UK. I obviously can’t comment very easily on what’s happening in Australia because I don’t know the details, but in the UK there is no question that there is a great deal of public dissatisfaction at the idea that one family can get more money in benefits than another family can get by hard work and that just seems to be fundamentally unfair and to be against what Britain stands for and I’m sure it’s against what Australia stands for as well. And you’ve gotta sort that out and that’s what we’re trying to do.
LEIGH SALES: Let me ask your views on some social issues that people are talking about at the moment. What are your views on immigration, particularly people seeking asylum?
BORIS JOHNSON: Look, there’s two sets of – I’m against people illegally exploiting a country and coming illegally to take benefits or whatever. And I think the fundamental reason why that is wrong is because they are undermining the people who have come here legally, who have done the right thing, who have taken a really difficult decision in their lives and to have gone through all the hoops and are paying taxes.
On the other hand, I am in favour of immigration if it brings to our country, I mean to London and to England, talented people who want to work hard and want to contribute to society, provided they become British and provided they share in the great project of being Londoners and helping out with what I think is the greatest city on Earth.
So, I’m not anti-immigrant. I want to stress that to you: I’m not anti-immigrant and it would be perverse for a Londoner to be anti-immigrant when you consider the city was founded by a bunch of pushy Italian immigrants in 48 AD or whenever it was they built the first bridge. So, we have almost 40 per cent of the population born abroad. Where I think any government is – any government has a duty and is right to come down hard on illegal immigrants.
LEIGH SALES: On another issue, are you in favour of gay marriage or not?
BORIS JOHNSON: I am. In fact I think I was – my view is, you know, if people want to get married, let them get married. And I was surprised to discover that it was not possible. I have to say I think it is a – it’s not the issue on which I would choose to fight an election. I think it’s the number one political issue of our times, but for goodness sake, times have moved on, let’s get it done. We’ve done it in the UK. I think that – I don’t know what the situation here is in Australia. I’m looking around this darkened room and see what the position is, but, you know, if you haven’t done it, you know, just knock it on the head. I would.
LEIGH SALES: Boris Johnson, thanks for your time.
BORIS JOHNSON: Thank you very much. Thank you.
Reporter: Leigh Sales
Publication: ABC 7.30 report
Date:21 August 2013