Boris Johnson falls into Lewisham river

Boris Johnson made a big splash when he fell into a river while urging Londoners to volunteer. The gaffe-prone Mayor slipped as he waded through the Quaggy waterway in Lewisham and had to be saved by community volunteers.

The hapless Mayor was attempting to clear litter and weeds from the river when he lost his footing and ended up chest-deep in the water. He had initially braved the water with members of the Quaggy Waterways Action Group to promote the work of volunteer groups in the capital. He had pulled a shopping trolley and a metal pole from the stream along with the invasive weed Himalayan Balsam before disaster struck.

After his unexpected dip Johnson, who has become adept at laughing off misfortune during his career, made light of the incident. He joked: "In order to promote this to the max possible I took the ultimate sacrifice - I decided to fall in, in a spectacular way."

The latest incident comes after Johnson was involved in a "near-miss" with a lorry while cycling in east London. The Mayor and a group of transport advisors were cycling in Limehouse last month when the back doors of a lorry that had overtaken him flew open and hooked the windscreen of a parked car, flinging it into the road and then into another vehicle.

The incident was caught on CCTV and witnesses said it was extremely lucky that no-one was seriously injured in the crash. ·