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We Remind Our Readers How We Tried To Avert A Disaster Happening In London. And Failed

July 19, 2009

We Remind Our Readers How We Tried To Avert A Disaster Happening In London. And FailedIn March last year I posted an article on this website warning our London readers that it was not a good idea to elect Boris Johnson as their Mayor in the May 2008 election. How right I was then and how wrong our readers turned out to be. The voted Boris in. Now they have only themselves to blame. Johnson proved to be a total disaster. Even worse than his predecessor, Labour’s Ken Livingstone.Today I post that article again, just to show how alert I was to the dangers of picking the wrong man for the job of London Mayor.

Vote For Red Ken. Boris Will Prove To Be A Disaster

I never thought I would say this but it would probably be better for everyone if Ken Livingstone stayed on as London’s Mayor after the election on May 1.

This is very hard for me to admit because I have always been a fierce critic of Mr Livingstone and I honestly thought that he was the worst possible choice for the Mayor of London. I even seriously contemplated offering my help to any worthwhile candidate who would be willing to take on Red Ken this year. Among my many jobs in the past I did some PR work for big companies and helped President Boris Yeltsin win his second term in office when his popularity rating was close to zero. I was prepared to work for free this time and even came up with a rallying cry for my future candidate for London Mayor: ‘A modern city needs a modern mayor!’.

But when last year Boris Johnson had been picked to run as Tory candidate in the mayoral contest I knew at once that I would not be helping him to oust Livingstone. If his performance as editor of The Spectator is anything to go by then London is in for a shock. Under his editorship The Spectator, that once great magazine, started to cough up blood and later simply died. Johnson may be a good journalist and TV show presenter but he sure is a lousy leader and a weak administrator, not to mention that he is prone to falling under the influence of his numerous friends and college buddies who know perfectly well that flattery will get them anywhere with Boris.

Such qualities are not beneficial for a mayor of a huge city like London. If Livingstone had proven to be inefficient when it came to solving traffic congestion, improving the work of the underground and resisting the lure of big property developers Johnson could fare even worse on all three counts. In fact, as regards the influence of big business on the new mayor the situation might get even worse than it is now. Consider for a moment that one of Johnson’s advisors is non-other than Steven Norris, that great supporter of everything that’s big in the world of business. And also don’t forget Johnson’s talent for upsetting people. Now that may prove very embarrassing if he becomes mayor. No wonder that Labour party advisors are consoling their bosses with the thought that even if Johnson wins the election in May he’ll probably prove to be a total disaster for the Tories.

I have a sneaky feeling that Mr Johnson actually knows about the perils that await him and is not at all confident that he’ll be able to cope with the pressures of the new job. It is one thing making gaffs as editor of a magazine having a publishing empire backing you all the way or saying silly things as an MP and feeling the presence of a powerful party machine in the background and it’s a completely different ball game when the buck stops with you. All that Mr Nice Guy talk and buffoonery would no longer shield him from the vicious attacks from all over the place.

I remember attending a debate last year between Johnson and other candidates competing for the Tory nomination in a church hall at Eaton Square and I must say that the MP for Henley didn’t sound all that impressive and convincing then. It was actually quite an uninspiring occasion with all the candidates not really looking like mayoral material. I even thought then that the Labour Party could have made a brilliant move and replaced Red Ken with somebody else to stand in the election and slaughter the Tories.

As for Livingstone, I suspect that he now regrets his fatal decision to cling to the bosom of the Labour Party before winning his second term. How wonderful life had been for him when he won his first term as an independent, showing two fingers to Tony Blair. Whatever you may think of Livingstone he was one of the first politicians in Britain to realise that Blair was never as popular as some people made it look. Like in that joke that surfaced after the last general election when Blair could not decide when to go. If Tony Blair, the joke went, really wanted to leave office on a high he should have done it in 1997.

Good joke, that; demolishes the Blair myth completely.
Livingstone had judged the situation perfectly all those years ago and won his first term on an anti-Blair ticket. But as the next election was approaching he suddenly got cold feet and crawled under the wing of the Labour party, hoping to get re-elected with the help of its powerful machine. He shouldn’t have bothered, of course, as he could have won the election all by himself, considering that Steven Norris dug up his own grave by failing to step down as director of Jarvis. But he misjudged the risk and now he is stuck with an unpopular government headed by a man who looks like a constipated Vulcan.

Things are not looking good for Livingstone at the moment with Johnson enjoying a solid double digit lead over him in the opinion polls. But I have a suggestion to Red Ken: dump Brown now and you might just pull it off. You have nothing to lose anyway.

– End –

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