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Key excerpts from the 10-minute exchange between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Paxman broadcast by the BBC:
JP: If the Lisbon treaty was ratified, what should then happen?
BJ: Let's have a referendum now...It may not be easy to deliver that. I... as a mere Mayor of London, as a mere toenail in the body politic, I have to accept it may be difficult to have a referendum.
JP: Oh! In principle, should a referendum take place?
BJ: Yeah, you betcha...
JP: You're not talking about the real world, Boris.
BJ: I am!
JP: It can't happen now because the Government has set its face against it.
BJ: Well, if there has been no final ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, which is always possible, even in your world. It's possible, isn't it?
JP: It is possible (italics).
BJ: Right, good, OK. I want there to be a referendum then!
JP: And if it has been ratified, what happens then?
BJ: That was the first question you asked me...! And David Cameron and William Hague and people at work now in the great tinkling smithy of policy on this will come up with an answer.
JP: People don't know what David Cameron is like as a person. You knew him at Eton, you knew him at Oxford, you knew him in the Bullingdon Club, what sort of a bloke is he?
BJ: Well, he is a grade-A bloke. What do you mean? You know him perfectly well. You have had him into your studio plenty of times.
JP: Yes, but I haven't rubbed shoulders with him, and I haven't drunk a lot of champagne with him, as you have.
BJ: Aah, so this is one of those tough questions...!
JP: No, it's not tough! What was he like in the Bullingdon Club?
BJ: He was an extremely serious and extremely committed young dynamic politician who's going to be a very, very good Prime Minister...
JP: I just want to know what he was like when he was in the Bullingdon Club. Did he go around throwing flower pots through windows?
BJ: If you are asking me about flower pots and stuff 25 years ago, is that really what you're asking? Is this really what Newsnight has come to?
JP: It is what Newsnight has come to.
BJ: Is this the depths that you have plumbed?
JP: By their deeds shall ye know them! He never spent a night in the cells like you.
BJ: The blessed sponge of amnesia has wiped the slate of memory. The details of that night mercifully escape me. I don't think people... frankly will give a monkey's about this. This is the kind of thing that people do at university all across this country.
JP: And after that he chooses to become a PR man.. of all the many possibilities in life!
BJ: You chose to become a journalist! Why don't you get yourself a proper job! [To camera:] He is sitting around telling politicians what to do all the time! Outrageous! You're paid staggering sums by the taxpayer!
JP: If only that were true!
BJ: Well...
JP: You don't know. Or perhaps you do, Boris!
BJ: No I don't.
JP: I should stop making assertions.
BJ: We didn't get an answer to that, by the way.
JP: What?
BJ: About your earnings.
JP: The usual convention to that, Boris, is that I ask the questions, and you answer them.
Reader views (4)
What a vile character Paxman is - full of class hate and prejudice. I found his attitude on Newsnight to be full of personal bitterness. I'm sick and tired of class prejudice from television journalists and Boris was right to put Paxman in his place. Boris showed Paxman up as being an odious, biased interviewer with a hate agenda. Paxman didn't ask Boris one constructive question and yes, Boris was equally right to alert the public that Paxman is paid a huge sum of money to act like a total moron. I am sick of Newsnight because of this constant Tory bashing. Let's all start boycotting this nasty little programme. Do we honestly want Paxman to carry on getting paid for this. I for one don't. He should be axed for the way he behaved. It was blatant bullying which is now being shown over the internet everywhere. Boycott Newsnight. Help stamp out class prejudice which is just as bad as racism.
- Boycott Newsnight, UK
How come the BBC never mentions that Nick Clegg was educated at a school as exclusive as Cameron and Osborne's and Alistair Darling was educated at a very posh private school in Edinburgh. Also I don't remember this obsession with private schooling when Blair was Prime Minister (he went to the Scottish version of Eton, Fettes). BBC/Media Bias.......surely not?????
- Carly, London, England
Well done Boris have a beer in the Vic on the BBC
- Frank H Jolliffe, Southport,Merseyside
This is becoming so repetitive, every time I switch on BBC TV or radio they are going on about Toffs and multi millionaires.
Is this what the political debate at the BBC is now about, this is a disgrace.
And dear old multi millionaire Paxman asking our politicians questions that he himself will not answer.
Shame on you BBC and you Mr Paxman
- Steve M, London
