Key moments from Tory candidates' interviews with Andrew Neil
Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt questioned on issues from Kim Darroch to trade
Seth Jacobson Sat 13 Jul 2019 13.10 BST Last modified on Sat 13 Jul 2019 13.37 BST
theguardian.com
The two candidates for the Tory leadership, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, were grilled by the BBC’s veteran political commentator Andrew Neil on Friday night. Both men found the experience testing, although while Johnson seemed to bluff his way through the encounter, Hunt often appeared to be frozen in the headlights. Here are the key moments from the two half-hour interviews.
Johnson on not backing Kim Darroch
The Conservative leadership frontrunner Johnson was pressed to explain his decision not to support the British ambassador to the US, Sir Kim Darroch, who quit on Wednesday after days of attacks by president Donald Trump.
AN: When you were asked four times in the ITV debate to support our man in Washington you did not do so. After watching it, he was so dismayed by your failure to do so it was one of the reasons he resigned.
BJ: Actually I spoke to him the following day and said how sad I was that he had resigned, and he pointed out that he didn’t watch it. So you might need to check your facts, Andrew, before you make –
AN: Did it play a factor in his resignation?
BJ: He said that what somebody had relayed to him had certainly played, had been a factor in his resignation –
AN: So what – your lack of support for him was a factor in his resignation?
BJ: I think that unfortunately what I – what I said on that TV debate was misrepresented to Kim.
Johnson on the Gatt trade deal
Johnson’s claims on Europe were also forensically examined, and the pair shared a bad-tempered exchange about the minutiae of article 24 of the general agreement on tariffs and trade (Gatt), which ended with the leadership hopeful admitting he didn’t know what one of the key clauses consisted of.
AN: So how would you handle – you talk about article 5B in Gatt 24 –
BJ: Paragraph 5B. Article 24. Get the detail right. Get the detail right, Andrew. It’s article 24 paragraph 5B.
AN: And how would you handle paragraph 5C?
BJ: I would confide entirely in paragraph 5B, because that is –
AN: How would you get round what’s in 5C?
BJ: I would confide entirely in paragraph 5B which is enough for our purposes.
AN: Do you know what’s in 5C?
BJ: No.
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Johnson on London’s crime rate during his mayorship
Neil also challenged the former foreign secretary about his achievements as London mayor, since Johnson has repeatedly tried to take credit for falling crime rates during his stewardship of the capital between 2008-16:
AN: It went down 20% in London when you were mayor, crime?
BJ: Crime went down roughly 20% when I was mayor.
AN: How much did it go down at the same time in the rest of the country?
BJ: Well –
AN: By 26%.
AN: So you were behind the rest of the country.
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