Will Boris ever get a grip on City Hall?
Dear Boris Johnson,
Perhaps being Mayor isn’t as much fun as it looked in the papers. I cannot believe that you are genuinely enjoying the coverage you have received, particularly after three high-profile resignations within three months of taking office. The latest to go is Tim Parker, appointed as your first deputy mayor with a brief to shake up City Hall and take over the chairmanship of Transport for London (TfL). According to official channels, Mr Parker stood down after you decided to chair the transport body instead, which I have no reason to doubt, but this still looks confused.
Having lived in London all my life, I have witnessed the chaotic results of TfL’s incompetence on many occasions so I understand the need to bring someone in to look after it. To say that Mr Parker quit because he realised that TfL requires “highly political” leadership seems a little odd, as I thought this was fairly obvious from the beginning. Even if this was a truly amicable split, it was never going to be seen that way by the media, who have not forgotten about the resignation of another deputy mayor, Ray Lewis, or the comments made about immigrants by your adviser James McGrath. Your comments in the Telegraph yesterday were also not the most polished contribution to the Conservative movement, as you calmly stated that “if you believe the politicians, we have a broken society in which the courage and morals of young people have been sapped by the welfarism and political correctness… If you look at what is happening at the Beijing Olympics, you can see what piffle it is.” Apparently, David Cameron is “relaxed” about this fairly overt attack on his critique of Labour’s social policy (which is a lot more substantial than you give him credit for), but I sure as hell wouldn’t be relaxed about your comments if I was leader of the party.
So, aside from the rush of resignations, have you given Londoners much cause for optimism? Spending an extra £20 million on cycle lanes seems like a good move, while offering a £25,000 prize for whoever designs the best new Routemaster is a bizarre move (and it could be years before the bendy buses are off the streets in any case). Encouragement can also be found in your decision to shift funding away from the corrupt LDA onto local funding for projects by London boroughs, your initiative to improve access to healthy, locally produced food and allocating 60m for an empty homes “rescue” package. Knife crime has proved more illusive, despite building your election campaign around this issue. The Metropolitan police launched Operation Blunt 2 in May, using stop and search powers and scanners to get knives off the streets, but the newspaper headlines make it hard to conclude that it has had a significant impact.
Like any vaguely rational follower of politics, I think you deserve more than three months to sort out the mess that Ken Livingstone left behind and the appointment of Anthony Browne, currently Director of Policy Exchange, as your Head of Policy can potentially help your administration get to grips with many of the pressing issues. A lot of work needs to be done, particularly on transport and housing, and while there is little evidence of huge progress at this stage I am happy to sit and wait – for now. Oh, and try to keep the resignations to a minimum.
Yours sincerely,
A.Tory
I welcomed BoJo’s observations as a corrective to the Daily Mail brigade. Admittedly you are not a member of that tendency, and nor is Cameron, but I was still cheering when I saw someone finally confronting the things were better in my day crowd.
If I were Cameron I too would be relaxed, and would say that this shows what we are capable of, but we can do more, especially in raising the aspirations of those from poor backgrounds. Boris is not being complacent, he is just saying that the country hasn’t gone to the dogs and can be improved, which is also Cameron’s view.
“I was still cheering when I saw someone finally confronting the things were better in my day crowd…”
I’d be a little more inclined to agree if we were achieving more than just a few medals in sport.
When we no longer have police falsely arresting people for pointing out their own crimes, or jobsworths harassing rescuers for not completing the paperwork, then the ‘things were better in my day’ crowd will be truly obsolete.
I agree with Julia that a few medals makes absolutely no difference to the fabric of our society.
In fact, over the past few days the broadsheets have rightly pointed out that around 50% of our medallists have a high-level education, making it perfectly clear that the link between our ‘broken society’ and the Olympics is tenuous to say the least.
“pointed out that around 50% of our medallists have a high-level education”
Ooh, hadn’t seen that.
[...] From A Tory thinks Antony Browne is the man to turn to. Nurse! The screens! A lot of work needs to be done, [...]
Sorry, this one is from the Daily Mail but there were other examples, honest!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1046615/Is-coincidence-Olympic-champions-privately-educated.html
Boris meant the generic politician not David Cameron and he is pretty clear which bits of society he thinks are working by the reference to the no. of public school pupils wining medals .
Bob Piper said the same thing which shows its a crock.
As far as the GLA is concerned its a grimy business if anyone is going to get into a stew when there are thrill and spills then they had better look away.
Ha, I know you’re not a big fan of Bob! Boris seems to be making the point that it’s not all doom and gloom, which seems fair enough, but criticising the language that the leader of your own party has been using was clearly not the best way to make this point.
The GLA is a curious entity that doesn’t really have much power, so Boris can use it as he chooses.