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Angry Rants Of A Londoner: The Mayor Is Hopeless

August 27, 2009

Angry Rants Of A Londoner: The Mayor Is Hopeless Adam Lovejoy writes: Pardon me for asking, but what the hell has the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, actually done for our once great city, since he was elected last year? What is it exactly that he has changed in the British capital that made it a better place to live in?

Words, words, words, said the Bard once, and this is what exactly we got, and are still getting, from Mr Johnson: plenty of words, and sometimes hints but not much action.

I will do this and I will do that. And may be I will not even stand for the second term – wink, wink – because I might be tempted to do something different, like becoming Prime Minister.

That man, Johnson, had the nerve to tell us that he could use his position as a Mayor of London to stage a bid for the leadership of the Conservative party. This was true Boris: arrogant to the extreme, while pretending to be fluffy and likable and buffoon-like.

But while Boris talks the talk London’s problems are getting worse. The current situation on Underground is a disaster. It is so hot down there that you can see the devil’s servants all over the place, as it is the sort of envoronment they are used to.

Mayor Johnson has been saying a lot of things about the Underground. But has done nothing. Even though the buck stops with him. He should have been doing something about the heat on the Tube.

Mayor Johnson should get off his bike and start using the London Underground, to see for himself the hell that exists there. He should be spending days down there, checking how the money is spent. Because by by the looks of things it is being squandered on some cosmetic adjustments that do not really change anything.

But the dire state of the Underground is just one of London’s many problems. I have recently been driving around the city during the day. Do not get me wrong: I was not driving aimlessly, with music blasting from my open windows and eyeing women like some young idiots do. I am too old for that. It was a hot day and I had several meetings arranged in different parts of the city. It was hell getting from one point of destination to another. Most of London was dug up indiscriminately. Temporary lights were everywhere and at most locations workers pretty much did nothing but stand around in groups and talk to each other. They felt themselves masters of the world. They were in charge. They decided how the traffic was flowing. Who on earth gave them all those temporary lights? They will now set them up all over the place, just to demonstrate their power over drivers.

And the congestion charge no longer seems to help tackle congestion. It is more of nuisance as many drivers try to avoid it and create even more congestion.

The sequences of lights around the city have been changed so that traffic flow has slowed down to a crawl with long periods of waiting, with not a single pedestrian crossing. Cyclists, having no lanes of their own and having grown in numbers, are causing problems for everyone, including themselves. All the talk about cyclists being able to cycle down established routes has proven to be just that, talk.

And the potholes on the roads are now everywhere. Not to mention that most of London has been vandalised, I have no other word for it, with speed ramps of such height that you can feel how cars damage their suspensions and wheels and exhausts. Just because 0.1 per cent of the drivers are idiots and drive like mad does not mean that all people should be punished for their stupidity.

Crime is high and all those pathetic attempts to feed the people some stupid statistics that show that crime is going down would not help. Ask any decent copper and he would tell you that things in London are not going well. It is just that many of the crimes are not reported simply because no one expects the police to find anyone. And even if they do, the judges would simply let them off the hook.

In his days as editor of The Spectator magazine Mr Johnson made a fine mess of things: the quality of the publication went down, it mostly plugging books of Johnson’s friends left, right and centre and the magazine was rocked by sex scandals. Consider this: if he could not cope with running a publication what can we expect from him in running such a huge city as London. It is all very fine for Mr Johnson to continue to play the role of a lovable buffoon but it is time he actually started doing things. And stopped eyeing the top job in the Conservative party.

Oh, yes, and if he has any sense at all he should pull the plug on the 2012 London Olympics. That would be a master stroke. Something really positive for Londoners.

– End –

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