Boris Johnson’s appearance on LBC’s Nick Ferrari show this morning highlights two clear issues with his administration. 

The first is broken promises. In his manifesto Boris Johnson gave a commitment [pdf, see page three] that he would reintroduce tidal flow in the Blackwall tunnel. Now he says he can’t do it for legal reasons.

There are two options. Either he was right during the election, in which case it is simply incompetent not to implement his promise. Or he is right now, in which case it was incompetent – or worse – to make a promise that could not be kept. But either way it means that many people who use the tunnel or are affected by it have been cut adrift by Boris Johnson despite his claim to speak for them.

The second is the failure to submit himself to real accountability and scrutiny. Assembly members now routinely highlight Johnson’s repeated refusal to answer questions. The problem extends to the media. It crept its way into the public domain today. At the end of Boris Johnson’s half hour on Nick Ferrari’s programme Ferrari told listeners trying to get through that LBC had been trying to get a longer slot from Johnson but had so far failed to get one agreed. LBC then took the unusual step of tweeting that they had such a short time slot from Johnson:

lbc973: Thanks for your questions for Boris. Sorry if you didn’t get your question on, but we only had 30 minutes with the Mayor.

The Standard’s Paul Waugh then entered the fray, retweeting the LBC comment and adding “sounds like Bojo upset NFerrari.”  Adam Bienkov replied to Paul that Ferrari said Ken Livingstone always gave him an hour.

The Mirror’s Kevin Maguire, who often hosts programmes on LBC, jumped in on Twitter too: 

Kevin_Maguire: Ken Liv was radio grilled 60 mins every month, Boris Johnson gives just 30 every 6 weeks @lbc973 BoJo running scared?

 Labour’s leader on the London Assembly, Len Duvall, was quick to make an mischievous offer: 

Len_Duvall: @lbc973 I’d be happy to do the second half hour in future if the Mayor wants to avoid answering questions

That LBC felt prompted both on air and via their own Twitter account to point out that Boris Johnson was giving them such a short slot is symptomatic of the fact that the mayor does not take the London-wide media seriously. He has ended the practice of his predecessor of making himself available to the media most concerned with London politics through weekly press conferences. He barely holds press conferences at all. He contemptuously argues that if the media want to question him they can go and find him doing local visits, but on key occasions he is often unavailable at all – for example on the first working day back under this year’s fares Boris Johnson avoided interviews, handing them to his transport adviser Kulveer Ranger. The London segment of the Politics Show, despite being filmed only a few floors below his office, has never been graced with an interview with the mayor.

Johnson’s media strategy may be to concentrate on national broadcast media who are less likely to know the details of devolved London politics than their counterparts concentrating on the capital, and therefore more likely to give him an easy ride.

But as the Ferrari show demonstrated today, the effect is to snub not only the dedicated London media but the people who matter most – Londoners. What is he scared of?