A Blooper From Sir Simon?

Thursday’s ‘open data’ event at the Greater London Authority was interesting for a number of reasons.

But for those playing the guessing game over how long Boris Johnson plans to hang around City Hall, there was a potentially revealing slip of the tongue from his deputy Sir Simon Milton.

Questioned as to whether there would be continuing commitment to release data from the mayor, Sir Simon gave the following answer: “You need a lot of political leadership to make sure this doesn’t get stuck and momentum isn’t lost. I don’t believe bureaucracies of their own will freely give out information or data, there does need to be pressure applied. That is the task of politicians.

“You saw for yourself Mayor Johnson is personally very committed to this and he will continue to be committed during his term in office… or terms, hopefully, in office.”

The way it came out it sounded very much like he was correcting himself.

I’ve attempted to make an AudioBoo recording of my Dictaphone recording so you can judge for yourselves (technology is still not a strong point here at LGC Towers).

The sound quality is not great and you’ll probably need to use headphones to make anything out.

Has Sir Simon let the cat out of the bag that Boris only intends to serve one term in office? Or was it simply an innocent mistake?