Interviewed for the BBC Boris Johnson dismissed the £250,000 he is paid by The Telegraph for his excellent Monday column as "chicken feed". He continued:
"I happen to write extremely fast. I don't see why on a Sunday morning I shouldn't knock off an article, if someone wants to pay me for that article then that's their lookout and of course I make a substantial donation to charity. Maybe that money shouldn't go to charity, maybe you'd rather I didn't make those contributions to charity. It seems to me to be a wholly reasonable thing to do."
Liberal Democrat frontbencher Norman Baker was quick to go on the attack:
"There is nothing wrong with people writing newspaper columns but this is an enormous amount of money and for Boris Johnson to dismiss it as 'chicken feed' shows just how out of touch he and the Conservative party are from the reality of life for millions of Londoners struggling to make ends meet in the depths of a recession."
Not Boris' most sensitive remark.
Tim Montgomerie
