Diary: A question for City Hall. Did the jokey mayor of London go a quip too far?

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/11/hugh-muir-diary-jokey-mayor-wait

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• It is now well over 24 hours since we posed a simple question to the office of the mayor of London. Thus far, no answer. He has been busy, appearing on the radio and buying water cannon. But it was a simple question, arising from a reader's email. "During a Healthy Schools London event at City Hall a group of school children performed a dance for Boris Johnson," it said. "The dance ended with the group saluting him with one hand raised. He was heard to say, 'What is this, Nuremberg?'" Is this true, we asked the mayor's officials. And then we asked again. And again. Our source apparently heard it clearly, but still we thought to give the jokey mayor the benefit of the doubt. No answer. Disappointing. At this rate folk will think it must be true.

• Last week Lady Trumpington reacted to our telephone call by putting the phone down, but Total Politics magazine had better luck. Perhaps its approach is more palatable to the grander type of Tory peer. Therein she addresses female researchers who might complain about the attentions of lascivious male MPs. "Listen, I think most women know from a pretty young age that they have to watch out and avoid it. You avoid it, if you possibly can. And if you don't, you're a fool." Carry on Trumpers. "Honestly. The world was not born this week, which it appears to have been from people discovering that men are going to touch up girls. I think it's ridiculous. It's always been so, and you learn to avoid it if you possibly can. What I say is, [women] must just avoid it. Eventually men grow out of it, one hopes. One hopes."

• Entertaining tug-of-war between PM Dave and his taskmasters at the Sun. Just a fortnight ago the paper issued its "final warning" to the PM over immigration. "Mr Cameron must demand that migrants be able to move only if another country agrees it needs them," it said. "Next May he can only expect to win people's votes by showing he can deliver what they clearly want." But looking at today's mournful Sun headline it doesn't seem to have had the desired effect. "Cam: No action on EU migrants," it said, bolstered by a sorry conclusion in the leader: "The PM is powerless and unwilling to limit the flow of EU workers." Soon they will cross that thin line between love and hate.

• With the start of the World Cup, we consider football's culpability in the area of politics. For his new book, The 10 Football Matches That Changed the World and the One That Didn't, the former Labour minister Jim Murphy has been discussing the career-changing impact of football with his old mate Tony Blair. The young Blair, desperate for a seat and running out of time to find one, just secured the Sedgefield nomination by managing to bond with local official John Burton – who would later become his loyal agent. The bond was forged watching Alex Ferguson's Aberdeen beat Real Madrid in the 1983 European Cup Winners' Cup final. "I was the last candidate of any of the parties anywhere in the country to be selected," he says. "The reason I got through was partly because of that night watching the Aberdeen game." Murphy asks: "What would have happened if you hadn't gone to John Burton's house that night, and failed to have been selected as the Labour candidate in Sedgefield?" "Well, I wouldn't have been prime minister … I wouldn't have got into parliament until the next election in 1987. I wouldn't have been at the right stage of development. In those days the political development process was a little longer. To be absolutely blunt about it Gordon [Brown] would have been, you know, so far ahead there wouldn't really have been any doubt about it. By the time John Smith died in 1994, I would only have been seven years in parliament and at the time that just wasn't long enough." So football led to everything after. Damn that beautiful game.

• A diary date, finally – 8 July sees the launch of the Smart Meter Central Delivery Body's nationwide campaign to persuade everyone to buy gas and electricity via a new "smart meter". Special guest speaker: Sir Bob Geldof. Whatever the worthy cause, call for Bob.

Twitter: @hugh_muir