



Boris Johnson, London’s mayor, was pressed on Monday to explain why he initially dismissed allegations that the police had failed to notify thousands of victims of phone hacking as “a load of codswallop.”

Mr. Johnson, a member of the Conservative Party, told reporters that he made that remark last September because John Yates, the deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service who resigned on Monday, had assured him that there was no need to open a new investigation since no new evidence had come to light following the initial inquiry in 2006. The mayor, who is partial to a colorful turn of phrase, said that Mr. Yates had told him that there was “nothing at the end of the rainbow.”

A transcript of Mayor’s Question Time for Sept. 15, 2010, shows that Mr. Johnson called the allegation that phone hacking was much more widespread than the initial police investigation had suggested, “a load of codswallop cooked up by the Labour Party.”

This video report from Sky News, which is partly owned by News Corporation, the same company that owns the newspapers indicated in the hacking scandal, includes footage of Mr. Johnson under pressure at his news conference on Monday:

To put this episode in context, it helps to know that Mr. Johnson was himself a victim of phone hacking and is also a journalist, writing a column for The Daily Telegraph, a newspaper that supports the Conservatives.

In 2009, a report by Nick Davies of The Guardian — a newspaper that has supported the Labour Party in the past — suggested that the police had failed to notify thousands of victims of phone hacking whose account details were included in the notes of a private investigator working for The News of the World. Those notes were seized by the Metropolitan Police Service, commonly known as Scotland Yard, in 2006.

After that report was published in The Guardian, Mr. Yates was asked to determine if a new investigation was needed. He announced, just one day later: “No additional evidence has come to light. I therefore consider no further investigation is required.”

The problem, as my colleague Don Van Natta Jr. wrote on Saturday, was that there was quite a lot of old evidence, collected by Scotland Yard in 2006 but overlooked or concealed for years, to indicate that The News of the World had indeed broken into the voice-mail accounts of thousands of people.

On Sept. 1, 2010, The New York Times Magazine published a report by Mr. Van Natta and our colleagues Jo Becker and Graham Bowley that detailed flaws in the initial police investigation.

Two weeks after that article was published, Joanne McCartney, a Labour member of London’s assembly, asked Mr. Johnson: “Since this story has been revived by the New York Times article, have you had any briefings or discussions, perhaps with your deputy, on this issue and also what the police are doing? Have you or haven’t you?”

Mr. Johnson replied: “I read the New York Times article, with great attention. At the end of it I found myself scratching my head and wondering what news there was in it.

After he was pressed further by Ms. McCartney to say if he had discussed the matter with his deputy mayor for policing, Mr. Johnson added:

I am almost in continuous conversations with my deputy mayor for policing about this and other matters. It would be fair to say that he and I have discussed this. The conclusion of our conversation would be obvious from what I have said. In other words, this is a load of codswallop cooked up by the Labour Party and that we do not intend to get involved with it.

Dave Hill, who blogs about London for The Guardian, suggested on Monday that Mr. Johnson’s “eagerness to maintain good relations with” the British newspaper division of News Corporation might have influenced his decision to avoid the phone-hacking scandal.

According to Mr. Hill, Mr. Johnson has accepted, “six free meals from various members of its top brass since becoming mayor. These have included ‘dinner for two’ in Mayfair with Rebekah Brooks (Rebekah Wade as she was then), a lunch with James Murdoch and a dinner with Rupert Murdoch.”

Mr. Hill added: