Racing Certainties

As a health advisory I shall say once again I am very pleased that London will host the 2012 Olympics. This still does not take away my fears about the ability of the current government to organise a piss-up in a rugby club furnished with unlimited free alcohol from every brewery in the land.

When you hear a minister, and yes, one of any politically colour, assure us that the sum of money to be spent on any particular grand initiative is known, capped, and under control we can, without even bringing cynicism to bear, assume that the real number is unknown, fundamentally without bounds and would take a forensic accountant a lifetime to calculate, even after the event.

For a well run government project we can put a finger in the air and guess that there is about an eighty percent chance of a noteworthy overrun on past performance, with such cast iron assurances in place. When it is admitted chance that there is a twenty percent chance of this happening, we can assume that the only real question on the Olympic overrun, even on its already doubled budget is how much, and how many nines we place after the decimal point on the likelihood of it happening.

I personally want the Olympics here in London, but we really need to start seeing the hard numbers, and the real funding plans. London should, if well run, should turn in a real profit in the medium term, but there is a real question over whether this is even remotely likely with our current financially incontinent central government, even before you begin to wonder about the business acumen of our local scion of the school of central planning, the ever useless Ken.

At least the legendary newt fancier has promised that no further burden will fall on London's council tax payers. At least in respect of the Olympics that is, as in other areas it is now seeming likely that the mayoral precept may put a spanner in the works of the attempts of more efficient (non Labour) boroughs to ensure that central government's politicisation of block grants do not result in large increases in local tax liabilities.

Well, at least we know that Livingstone will put the money to good uses for the benefit of all Londoners, not just a select few.

Phase II Complete

Just Ken to go now

I've been a bit distracted by other matters for the last couple of days and somehow missed the announcement that Boris had won the primary to be Conservative candidate in next year's election for London Mayor. Naturally I am unsurprised but pleased nonetheless.

As I posted some time ago, not only do I think that Boris is a good candidate in his own right, more than capable of transcending his current image of amiably buffoonery and delivering a victory over Ken, but also that the campaign which is likely to be at arm's length from conventional party politics might well capture the public imagination and bring much needed engagement with the political process. The BBC however are not pleased, devoting most coverage of reaction to the result to the usual suspects making the usual clumsy, simplistic attacks on Boris' character.

I hope that Boris took notice of the campaigns of at least two of his defeated opponents, and at least considers the possibility of including them in his own mayoral campaign in some way. I thought runner-up, Victoria Borwick's presentation and delivery was excellent, even if her website campaign video did leave me feeling slightly sea-sick. I couldn't say I agreed with all of Andrew Boff's policy suggestions but he certainly showed his quality as an independent thinker and would definitely be an asset in a policy think tank, providing he understood it was in a role where not his entire agenda would prevail. It seems unkind to exclude Warwick Lightfoot, who I'm sure worked very hard, and has the interests of London at heart, but I'm afraid he just never captured my imagination.

While at least on this one front things seem to going the right way for the Conservatives, things seem a little less positive over in the yellow/orange corner. The general line from their leading contender as Mayoral candidate, Brian Paddick seems to have been that he was always a Liberal Democrat supporter, but that it was inappropriate in view of his senior policing role to reveal these political sympathies while still serving on the force. The Sun last week though revealed that he didn't know any Lib Dem policies until after joining the Mayoral contest.

Apparently, once he learned of them he thought they were 'brilliant'. That's a bit of luck for you then Brian. I'm not sure what it says for your decision making process though, but it might explain how some of the more suspect policies of the Met in recent years came about.

Boris on Target

Boris at his Best

As reported elsewhere the Evening Standard on Friday published an excellent analysis of the Compass Group's pretty pathetic attempt to smear Boris Johnson, by selectively quoting him in such a way that in many cases the meaning was completely reversed.

If you don't have time to read the whole thing, Dizzy has a very good precis of the key points. The way some of the appallingly selective quotes in the report were used would bring a blush to the face of a poster designer for a soon-to-be West End flop, as they cut and pasted the single good word from yet another critic's carpeting of the production.

A good idea of why the Labour party machine is so rattled by Boris' candidacy can be found in an excellent recent opinion piece for the Daily Telegraph. It shows all the wit and intelligence that the bumbling exterior so often hides, and deals with a very serious issue in a sensitive way despite the engaging way he puts over his points.

Moreover I think it shows an understanding of the concerns of many in society, from all parts of the political spectrum, about how our society is developing. His analysis is both common sense to the common man, and also a complete anathema to heavy handed statists like Mayor Livingston.

Talking of the kind of small scale crime that leads ultimately to the kind of world in which the tragic incidents highlighted in a couple of recent posts occur, Mr Johnson has this to say:

Yes, we need more policemen on the beat, and not filling out forms, and yes, we need to make sure that these thugs are properly punished. But we can flood the streets with police and fill our jails to American levels without addressing the fundamental issue: that children have lost respect for adults, and they know that adults will take no steps to win it back.

Source: The Daily Telegraph

He is almost certainly right, but moreover it is clear from the article that he understands the complexity of the problems.

It could be argued that he fails to put forward much in the way of concrete steps forward to address the challenges we face. To accept though, as I think most people do now, that the problems exist, to understand that they may not have some of the simplistic roots and solutions that some like to believe, and to have a grasp of the extent of the scale of the challenge is a vast improvement of the simplistic utterances of most politicians.

Borisisms

My involvement with the 'Backing Boris' Facebook Application I came across the rather fun Boriswatch site, which as well as a blog dedicated to the next Mayor of London, features a fine collection of quotes by the man himself of which I feature a few of my favourites below.

“I don’t see why people are so snooty about Channel 5. It has some respectable documentaries about the Second World War.

It also devotes considerable airtime to investigations into lap dancing, and other related and vital subjects.”

Boris Johnson
On Channel 5 (Now 'Five')

“He is a mixture of Harry Houdini and a greased piglet.”

Boris Johnson
On Tony Blair

“My hair has yet to induce epilepsy and cost considerably less than £400,000 to design.”

Boris Johnson
When Boris’s hair was compared to the new London 2012 Olympic logo, 9th June 2007

H/T Boriswatch

Backing Boris II

Neatly linking together yesterday's posting about Facebook and one from earlier today on BoJo's bid for the London Mayorality, Liberty's Requiem has been pleased to provide a little technical consultancy on, and hosting for an unofficial "I'm Backing Boris" Facebook application to back Boris' bid. The application allows supporters show their supprt by displaying The Thunder Dragon's campaign poster on their Facebook profile page, along with a few other goodies such as links to relevant Facebook groups and 'Boris TV'. I was quite proud of my De Pfeffelometer which charts the progress in application sign ups!

Sign up now, just click the button on the banner above!

Backing Boris to Bash Ken

A Gaffe and Offence Prone Mayor?
Crikey - Plus Ça Change...!

There have been quite a lot of things happening over the past few weeks in the world of politics. We've had a change of Prime Minister, as sadly a not insignificant proportion of the country will unbelievably have failed to notice (I kid ye not - I know at least one intelligent person who was not aware of Mrs Thatcher's demise until well into John Major's second year). Probably the biggest issue for the two main opposition parties' leaderships today will be the two bye-elections in Ealing Southall and Sedgefield, where whoever actually comes the 'distant third', that each predicts for the other will probably come under a lot of pressure, especially if it's Ming. Across the channel Senor Barroso is showing all the signs of a Napoleon Complex. Not quite like any other Napoleon complex of course, after he is, in his own words, the president of the first non-imperial empire (????). There's nothing new in what he said of course, but he's the first Commission President to have been enough of a bumbling idiot to actually say it. Jean Monet must be turning in his grave to hear the imperial ambitions of the EU proclaimed, at least so publicly, regardless of the bizarre caveats Barroso attached.

My focus though, has been strangely drawn to matters more local this week, on an issue that I've rarely given that much thought to.

The deadline to enter the primary race to be the Conservative candidate for Mayor of London passed on Monday and the likely shortlist of candidates for the primary stage appears to be coming together. Lots of hats have already been thrown in the ring already and thanks to 18 Doughty Street and Iain Dale's series of interviews I've had chance to listen to most of their owners. I really hate say it, because every one of them showed a lot of enthusiasm for the job, nerve to be standing for the post in the first place and had at least a couple of unique policies I could back, but I couldn't see a serious rounded candidate among them. The closest was probably DJ Mike Read, who I'd have to admit did impress in his Doughty Street, but at the end of the day I can't help thinking that his undoubted brand-recognition factor would ultimately have turned out to be a sword two equally well-honed cutting edges.

The general consensus as the deadline approach seemed to be that, at the last minute, Steve Norris would step into the breach for another attempt to unseat the repellent terrorist, tin-pot dictator and newt fancier. There also seemed to be another tacit consensus, if the general reaction to this possibility was any measure, that the most likely outcome in such a match up will be Norris running the Vile One (no not the Poison Dwarf (q.v) - Even Ken isn't that bad) very close once again, but again not close enough. My gut instinct leads me to the same conclusion. I just couldn't see what would be different this time around; Norris has campaigned well on his previous outings and was generally well received, Ken has continued to embarrass and inconvenience London with his various escapades but no worse than in years before becoming Mayor, or during his first term, and has continued to dodge the opprobrium the little half-wit truly deserves. There was unlikely to be a Cameron effect in play with Norris already having played an effective 'inclusive' line, even managing to blend it successfully with a bit more of a streak of toughness than party has yet managed to do on a national level.

And then after months of rumours and counter-rumours about the little known, media-shy, MP for Henley, and his ambitions, or lack of them to be a candidate for London Mayor, came the final announcement that Boris Johnson would stand for the post. Already Read and Richard Barnes have withdrawn, backing Boris, and the remaining shortlist 4 (or 5) look to be facing an uphill struggle to see off BoJo in the primaries.

It was only as the speculation became more serious about a Boris bid, that I started to think that such a bid might actually be a pretty good thing.

It's pretty easy to bring Boris to mind for a series of public gaffes and causing gratuitous offence to various communities, as well as his slightly shambolic, vague public image. That though, is to ignore the perceptive nature of his more considered writings and frankly, that through it all people actually instinctively warm to him. Even Ken on Sunday's TV seemed unable to direct his normal venom for someone of different political persuasions in Boris' direction. As for his habit of causing offence now and again, when he speaks his mind, well I think Ken shows that Londoners will live with it.

Ken contemplates a day at the
office whith no tin-pot dictators
or religious bigots to meet

I find it hard to be kind to Ken, but I think it's a similar kind of straightforwardness that gives him his appeal beyond his natural political constituency. If it wasn't for the particular inanity of some of his policies and the uncommon vileness of some of the people he shares a stage with, I suppose I too could come to a similar view, and I can see a certain something in him that I prefer to the creepiness of his colleagues in national government.

What it should make for, most importantly though, is an interesting contest, and might well fire the public imagination even beyond London. It's something the country needs in an era where public participation in the political process is falling to dangerously low levels.

There have been a hundred and one suggestions on how to reverse this trend: changing to weekend voting, voting in supermarkets or on-line, increasing fraud prone postal voting or dropping the voting age to include an age band that is probably the most politically apathetic of all. Other than this last suggestion they all have one thing in common - the idea that somehow the act of voting is too difficult for we the electorate. I think that this principle is fundamentally flawed. Time after time, when there is something at stake that the electorate both care about, and feel that their vote will count for something, the people will overcome these imagined obstacles to their participation.

The real problem, as I see it, is that at a national level with the exception of John Major's victory over Lord "I'll never take a peerage" Kinnock there has not been one general election in the time when I've had the vote where the result has been in any serious doubt. At a local level, after 10 years of centralising of control, there are so many areas where local authorities can only act as the local implementation agency for central government policy, that there is little at stake even though dramatic results can and do occur. Probably the last time I felt my vote counted for something was at the last elections to the European Parliament, as I'm sure many others must have done, and the turnout increased massively. This was despite the fact that many of us knew it would only have symbolic significance as the EU, by design, would never make the slightest course change regardless of the message from the voters.

I'm sure the next general election will be better, but perhaps only marginally so, as, while the result is far less certain, it will in all probability the choice between two flavours of bland managerialism, with a PR blitz to create a facade of 'clear blue water' between the parties.

A contest for London Mayor between Ken and Boris would be an engaging affair, doubtlessly chaotic at times, and controversial at others. It would though, be for an office that carries significant powers, with little certainty to the outcome, and between two politicians that people genuinely engage with, and that can only be a good thing.

If the prospect of Boris as Mayor brings out thousands of newt fanciers to see off Boris then so be it. That's what democracy is all about. Meanwhile I'll be backing Boris.