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THERE’S NEVER A BAD TIME FOR BORIS TO ASK FOR CASH
BORIS Johnson likes to make much of the fact that he has convinced the private sector to give him oodles of cash. Barclays gave £25m to help pay for his Boris bikes while Emirates, the airline, will pay £36m over the next ten years to sponsor the Thames cable car. But his method of extracting cash from benefactors can sometimes prove a little unconventional. The Capitalist hears that he tapped Lakshmi Mittal for cash while the pair were taking a leak at a urinal in Davos, where they were attending 2010’s World Economic Forum. Just two months later, Mittal said he was donating £16m to help build the UK’s tallest sculpture, designed by Turner Prize-winning artist Anish Kapoor, to commemorate the London 2012 Olympics.