Boris's Awkward Brain Fade Over Doctors Strike

5 January 2016, 10:15 | Updated: 25 August 2016, 16:03

This is the awkward moment Boris Johnson wrongly told LBC listeners that the Junior Doctors strike had been called off.

The Mayor of London was asked by Nick Ferrari if he backed the Junior Doctors' industrial action and he said he was pleased to see the doctors cancel their strike.

He claimed he read that on the front of the Daily Telegraph, but when Nick showed him the front page, the headline read: "Junior Doctors Plan Strike Action".

Boris insisted he had read somewhere that it had been cancelled yesterday, but Nick insisted: "Have you told Jeremy Hunt, because I spoke to him at 7.20.

"I know journalism wasn't an arena in which you shone, but normally a headline gives you the idea of a story and the idea 'Plans Strike Action' means it's on."

The Mayor tried to style it out, claiming: "Maybe I read this headline so fast on my way here that somehow my natural optimism made me gloss it as 'Call Off'. Maybe I read Scrap instead of Plan."

Nick teased him for the mistake, declaring: "This man could be Prime Minister!

"'Russia's not invading'. 'What, Russia's invading? Right!'"