Posted on 05/26/2011 11:01:12 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
President confronted by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, over America’s failure to pay the congestion charge.
Amid all the glad-handing and rictus grins that greeted Barack Obama everywhere he turned during his whistlestop visit to the British Isles, Boris Johnson will undoubtedly have made a particular impression upon him.
At the end of the state banquet in the president’s honour at Buckingham Palace, the Mayor of London took the opportunity to have a quick word. “Could you please write me out a cheque for £5 million?” Johnson asked him.
The request for the president to settle the congestion charge bill that his country has run up was made with charm. The president smiled broadly. If he was about to reach for his chequebook, however, the swift intervention of Louis Susman, Obama’s ambassador to London and his former fund-raiser, put paid to that.
“I think this is a matter where our position is already well known,” he said to Johnson with a steely glare as Obama departed. Still, Johnson was delighted to have got his request in. “Mission accomplished,” he texted a colleague afterwards.
The American Embassy owes a total of £5,291,520 in unpaid congestion charge bills, which makes it the worst offender among the diplomatic missions in the capital.
America’s fuel-guzzlers beat even their opposite numbers at the Embassy of the Russian Federation, who owe £4,416,720, and Japan’s, who have £3,651,780 outstanding.
Two thirds of the embassies in the capital pay the congestion charge. British diplomats in America, by contrast, pay road tolls when required.
Johnson and Obama have a special relationship. When the mayor first
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
It seems to me we should pay that bill.
Not so sure I’m with you on this one. Paying taxes to England isn’t what this country is all about.
Then there’s that indigestion charge for the state dinner...
Obama to Johnson, “Call Rezko. He’ll take care of it just like he took care of my house’s mortgage situation.”
No one can seem to find Rezko, Obama has him tucked away somewhere.
When are they going to pay us for saving their limey a$$es during WW2?
I think this is funny as hell...
It’s exactly what Obama wants to do to American businesses and ultimately every consumer under the banner of Cap and Trade.
Of course Obama I’m sure simply laughed... knowing full well that the check if and when it is ever written comes out of our pocket anyway.
It is funny how once again Obummer is made to look like a dope over there. Good for Boris. He makes me laugh.
He is a Conservative.
Did the US fund the construction of the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force?
Because those two institutions saved Limey asses during WW2, forcing Hitler to call off Operation Seelowe. America wasn’t even in the war at the time.
You should keep the five million dollars and buy some history lessons.
Pay the bill, close the embassy, fire the staff, put a computer terminal in, contract with india to run it.
I'll drink to that. Hiccup.
-----------------------------------------------
Pay it with Ben & Jackwagon's Monopoly money.
Zer0's been neither crowned nor ordained but his reign has been far from restrained When folks wake up tomorrow they'll find to their sorrow who's in line to receive the royal pain
Hope and Change.... Tragic.
Very few of them would acknowledge that we did. They credit the RAF (who did defend Britain nobly) and the USSR who depleted the Germans greatly on the Eastern Front.
I could be wrong but the congestion charges are about driving a car into the center of London (the City, the West End, etc.) where the traffic jams make Manhattan look like Death Valley.
Don’t try to tell a Brit that America had anything to do with winning WWII. They’d give France more credit at this point. This is especially hard to swallow for my generation who all had fathers in either Europe or Asia. My dad almost died of malaria in the Japanese theatre of war and my mother’s first husband was killed in Holland. All my uncles fought. And, of course, none of them ever spoke about it.
A friend of mine was playing “army” with some other children in Scotland when he was little (visiting his grandmother - he was born & raised in the US), and as they split into teams (some being the Germans), he said he would be an American. They all looked at him, then asked why he wanted to be an American when the British had won the war?
Too funny; he was too young to realize Britain had even fought in it...
See # 18
Yes, Europeans have strange memories.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.