Woke up this morning . . .
. . . And this man was my mayor.
. . . And this man was my next Prime Minister. The world looks very different today. Where did it all go wrong? Damn right I've got the blues.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 3:37 PM
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46 Comments:
It's sad really, I'd have no objections really if he was the best man for the job, but I think he's been voted in because he's a seen as more of a celebrity than a politician. Mind you, the ineptitude of the current government can't have harmed Boris' campaign. I'm now even more worried about how the Olympics will end up.
You could always move, Andrew. The countryside's lovely!
I think when the novelty value of having a clown in charge of London wears off Boris is gong to be subjected to full blown media mockery the minute one of the tube lines is delayed.
Bets on when Boris makes his first faux pas and insults the muslims/ poles/scousers (delete as appropraite)..I give him 2 weeks
Chin up, Andrew. Just do what I do. Declare democracy a sham, refuse to vote and blame those that do for the country's problems.
Easy!
It's horrible. I blame Jon Gaunt.
Sounds like the next great Blues classic ...
'Woke up this mornin' and Boris was my Mayor,
He mumbles and he bumbles and has candyfloss for hair,
And there's a man called Cameron who wants to be the Boss,
He tells me to vote Tory but I just can't give a toss.'
Ad lib wailing and fuzzy guitars ...
I'm attempting to save up to move to London. I am essentially saving up all my money to go and live with Boris Johnson. I feel sick.
"Where were you when Kennedy was assassinated?"
"Where were you when John Lennon was shot?"
"Where were you when Boris-fucking-Johnson became London Mayor?"
Boris! Wahey! What a legend! Genius!
That is, pretty much, a summary of the thinking behind a vote for Boris. That and 'it was time for a change' - regardless of what that change is. If my maths are right, there's a generation of voters coming through now who have never known a Labour defeat in their lifetimes. Sadly, the pendulum is going to swing. How long it stays swung is the question.
I have a feeling that Ken could get voted in again at the next mayoral election.
Bullingdon Club alumni -- dontcha just love em?
Hello Andrew, okay I'll rise to the bait - why is this turn of events viewed as being "wrong"?
Just to emphasise, this man http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wrSUeDxBhg is the most powerful directly elected politician in the UK. You know tou're in trouble when Arnie picks holes in your presentation skills.
Oh dear, did something go wrong in London?
As has Diamond Geezer . . . http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/.
"My MP is George Galloway.
My Mayor is Boris Johnson.
One celebrity left wing tosser, one celebrity right wing tosser.
I despair, I really do."
Time to move to Norwich I feel.
Simon James
And Boris tripped up on the bloody podium - it's an OMEN, I tell you...
There is always the faint glimmer of hope that Boris will be such an utter disaster he'll completely de-rail David Cameron's relentless push for Number 10.
Admittedly that's not going to be great for London, in fact, I'm afraid BoJo is going to turn a great city into a laughing stock.
Please accept my condolences. And I shall refrain from making any jokes about it not being the first Dick to become Mayor of London. Again.
Oh it's just too horrible.
Racist, misogonistic, adulterer and complete GobShite.
Well, what did the Labour Party expect?
Election night in 1997 was honestly one of the best nights of my life, but the last eleven years have been incredibly disappointing. They just haven't delivered.
John
Hugely, hugely depressing, isn't it? I was utterly fucking gutted last night when the results came through. I'm not a Londoner but I have pretty closely followed the race, so here's a bastardised (late correction: hugely extended) version from elsewhere of some of my own thoughts:
Ken is far from perfect and I have plenty of problems with him - some of his daft comments, his views on MMR, defence of the police over de Menezes and, well, the fact that as a politician he is inherently a liar whose first objective is to be re-elected - but I lament his unseating. He's an egotist but he was probably the most high profile overtly progressive presence in British electoral politics (which, perhaps, says more about the state of the Labour party than it does about him) thanks to his position as London mayor. I'm certainly not blind to his mistakes, he's perhaps achieved less than his reputation suggests andbut he's at least spoken out against plenty of key government positions (foundation hospitals, top-up fees, PFI, the Iraq war) even since rejoining Labour and called for, for example, progressive local income taxes to replace council taxes. Whether the party were just happy for him to be court jester or whether he really got under their skin, I don't know, but as a lefty I've got to have something and, moreover, someone to cling to at a time when it's apparently gone out of fashion entirely.
He was big enough (or self-aggrandising and astute enough) to apologise on behalf of London for slavery and willing to call his own party leader and prime minister "squalid" for his failure the same. Ultimately, he's stood up for minority groups for his entire political career - even when there were no votes in it for him and it did him damage, as with gay rights 30 years ago - and he's been possibly the only one big enough to unquestioningly stand up for Muslims in London - even if he's at times done it for electoral gain, I can live with that - since the 2005 terrorist attacks. I had problems with his invitation of al-Qaradawi until he explained what he claimed were his motivations for it - note that during the campaign he got a standing ovation from hustings for a gay newspaper after his explanation. And yes, I know all about the anti-Semite allegations and I've looked at all the purported evidence; I just don't agree that he is.
He's been hammered by the only London newspaper constantly through this election campaign with *absolutely fuck-all* evidence of any wrongdoing on his behalf or any personal gain for any of his staff. Completely coincidentally, of course, the licence for the Standard's associated newspaper, Metro, is coming up for renewal soon and, equally coincidentally, Boris Johnson (to some extent, rightly) stood up for Andrew Gilligan after Hutton and gave him a job. The wankers at Channel 4 who ran the ridiculous programme against him (which essentially said absolutely nothing new) without even doing the first fucking bit of digging on any of the other candidates are equally pathetic.
Frankly, for all his many faults, and for all it's perhaps due to the political spectrum lurching to the right, I love Ken. I love his outspokenness (a few weeks ago brilliantly calling the private train operating companies 'rapacious thieving criminals' and recently calling that absolute bastard who runs Migrationwatch a 'crusty old bore'), his relatively independent speaking against the party line, even his fucking newts. Christ, even if he didn't believe it, he at least gave people like me some hope that not everyone who was a high-profile member of the Labour party was a total bastard. He managed to be in Labour without going along with every last fucking thing the leadership suggests. He's cultivated his lefty credentials perhaps beyond a level to which they are justified but, for all his faults, he's managed to come to terms with globalisation and the seemingly inexorable universal march to a more free market economy and integrate it into his relatively socialist outlook far better than any high profile Labour minister.
Him losing the mayoralty at a time when lefty progressives in general, both in and out of the Labour party, seem to have all but disappeared as an electoral force, is an utterly shattering blow. Oh, and he's been replaced by someone whose main claims to fame are his contrived funny haircut, inability to open his fucking mouth without insulting various sections of society, and who'll be effectively instructed on how to act from Conservative Central Office. Hearing seemingly his entire family speak to News 24 last night at a champagne party with George Osbourne was almost enough to tip me over the edge. I've spent most of the last two days just shaking my head. Excuse the language, the ranting nature and the unexpected length of this comment. Feel free to edit if this is going to bore everyone to death.
I was about to c&p that somewhere else, and I've just noticed how many mistakes there are in it and how shit the grammar is. Excuse that too. I'm tired and angry.
Boris shines in these focus group led times because he clearly doesn't/can't compute the likely reaction and act accordingly. Also he exemplifies how the left/right lines have become not just blurred but crossed. Boris is far more libertarian than, say, our neurotic micromanaging control freak of a prime minister who is Thatcher's heir in so many ways, not least in his eagerness to curb civil liberties and lock people up without trial.
London didn't elect Boris, Bexley and Bromley did. For it is their votes which made the difference. And as we know, they aren't even in London but in Kent. The people who live there don't have anything invested in the quality of life for actual Londoners, like the transport system or air quality etc. Ken wasn't perfect, but he was very good for London.
Oh, and why did Boris remind of the little squirt Kevin on The Apprentice who was fired this week? Crap hair, gormless, vacant look on face, insufferable belief in his own abilities, despite all available evidence. Prone to using meaningless cliches to make him sound 'business' like, when clearly unable to comprehend the utter uselessness of the product he has decided to sell to us. I have a dream that Boris/Kevin will be allowed to run things for a while, make an utter mess of it, before siralan calls him in to the boardroom, bawls him out for being a ridiculous, useless loser and tells him he is fired. If only.
Nice withering tone, Office Pest, but as I made fairly clear in my two-big-pictures post, Boris's win has national implications, in that it emboldens the Tories for a general election win. Also, it wasn't just a London election, there were council elections right across the country. (I, too, think the media is too Londoncentric, and I live here, but in this particular case ...)
I've watched Labour get more and more unpopular with a sense of shadenfreude that others will recognise. They can't get away with what they've done to "the left" since 1997, and those who switched from Tory to Labour that year - Sun and Daily Mail readers, mostly - have switched back, despite the government's best efforts to be a kind of hypocritical, dishonest version of the Tory party. But Friday (council defeats, defeat in London) was the bloodiest nose yet, to use the newspapers' cliche, and now it seems a handover to the Tories is inevitable. That's a strange new reality to have to get used to.
Boris's win only has national implications because the media are so London-centric. The only interest (in one particular sense) that I had in the mayoral election was that I don't want to see that fake gooning shitter given even more national exposure. I should have been able to vote for that reason alone.
The slant in the Independent On Sunday this morning is that Dave (no, not me) is worried that Boris will embarrass him but surely they're both at least as shameless as Blair, aren't they? They're two peas in an offensively charming pod. Boris's "gaffes" are just a bit of fun and I suspect he'll be allowed a good couple of years of them before anyone (who matters) starts to give a shit. I hope that's not the case though.
Labour deserve a drubbing (whatever a drubbing is) after the Post Office closures (more important to a large number of voters than anyone who works in an office will ever understand) and the 10% tax band fiasco. Brown was totally responsible for the latter and he deserves nothing but contempt for it. But it speaks volumes that Dave (no, not me) the working man's chum hasn't been up in arms about it for the past year. He hasn't got a fucking clue either.
I was just reminded of this too.
http://video.mytaratata.com/video/iLyROoaftlb9.html
Dan - your comment wasn't at all dull, so I don't think you need to apologise!
Isn't most of London' budgeted spending mandatory rather than discretionary? If that's the case all we have here, looking from the outside, is another representative of you lucky punters in London, and perhaps a less morose one at that. My stance is that given that many outside of London already associate - most politicians, the civil service, the media, the Olympic committee, the City boys and Sir Alan Sugar (who is unique) - as representatives of London who can and do influence our lives, with Boris we just have one more. The Mayor of London doesn't appear to have the influence to reach too far up the M1, though I could be wrong if his superpowers are greater than I thought.
As for the Boris 'n Dave show, they both have to keep their respective shows on the road for a while yet, and, avoid tripping each other up. The Conservatives emboldened? Maybe, but with trepidation as well I would think. Stand by for David placing 'special advisors' between Boris and any form of mass communication.
However I agree with you and think that the nationwide local election results are a more profound, though incomplete, statement of the national mood, than the result of the 'showpiece' presidential election in London. The adage that the Opposition don't win elections but the Governing party loses them does look more likely now, that is if Labour do not re-engage, get their hands out of everyone's pockets, stop treating the proletriat like some kind of sociological numbers game and cheer up for fucks sake.
On this level of performance, Cameron could smile his way to an election victory just like, erm, oh yes, Tony Blair.
Anyway, I'm not a resident, so I'll need to be told - what difference does a change of Mayor really make to London? Is there some real power that could be wielded differently due to political preferences?
Who? What?
Are the 55 million-odd people who don't live in London supposed to give a monkey's? Because we don't.
There's a world beyond the smog and hate-filled metropolis. It's nice. It's better.
There are more of us, but we're not as noisy as Londoners so you don't hear about it.
And besides, Andrew, didn't you move to Surrey a couple of years ago? Has London really spread that far?!
Anna
I hate the tories, I can't see a reason to vote for them. They don't seem to have any strong policies one way or the other anyway, which is worrying because they'll just get in and start trying to please BNP voters. I actually found out one of their aims though, yesterday. I listened to a podcast that was 2 years old and heard Cameron say the tories will abolish regional assemblies. They may have their problems, and being North Walian I feel pretty much as distanced from my national parliament in Cardiff as I do from London (I've visited London 4 times in my life to one Cardiff trip), but they are a step in the direction of independence. I think this is sensible as it helps to build up the strength of the Welsh language and culture, so the English living here have time to decide whether to become Welsh citizens or whether to move out. Anyway I won't vote Cameron.
Did you campaign against Boris, Andrew? I'm planning to go off to Crewe in a couple of weeks to help keep the Tories from winning in the by-election there. I hope your post here prefaces a more overtly-politicised Collins.
Sure, the Labour Party doesn't live up to my high expectations of them, but the Tories consistently live down to my expectations of them.
I've spoken to dozens of Londoners over the last two days hand-wringing over Boris Johnson becoming Mayor, but not one of them had done anything to actually help keep him out of City Hall.
So come on, people, get politicised and start pushing that anti-Tory message. If you don't, you'll wake up one Friday morning in 2010 and see that your worst political nightmares really have just come true, and you'll have nobody to blame but yourself.
Hmmmm, lots of anger along the lines of, "Why should I care who's Mayor of London if I don't live there?" I feel your pain, but Boris's job is largely cosmetic: he's an ambassador for the capital city of the country. You don't have to be London-centric to know that. It's just true. I hate the fact that he represents not just the city I live in (I moved back from Surrey to London two years ago, Anna, but made less of a fuss about it - and having lived the first 19 years of my life in Northampton, I choose to live in London because I prefer it), but the capital city of the country I live in!
Of course Boris's win matters. It gives the Tories more confidence. Office Pest, in answer to your question, the Mayor can't do much - transport is the main area Boris can influence, by replacing some buses or reducing the congestion charge for 4x4s, which would please the Tories no end.
What I'm worried about is that Labour are going to have to fight an election in two years that they don't look capable of winning (David Milliband to the rescue - I don't think so), and as much as I hate Labour, I hate the Tories even more ie. we are doomed. There is no longer a viable, serious, electable political alternative to venal, business-led, growth-led market capitalism. That's a sad day. (I'm really sorry for living in London, by the way, and it's not all "hate-filled", Anna.)
Well, go on then, I'll ask:
"There is no longer a viable, serious, electable political alternative to venal, business-led, growth-led market capitalism."
Which one do you identify as the last one, (that really was electable, whether elected or not)? Clunky sentence, sorry, but I hope you get the drift.
Surely they're all interested in fleecing more and yet more out of corporation tax and personal tax so they can over-egg the various arms of government/civil service etc. This makes economic growth a pre-requisite in order to finance their own world.
Oops,
I just found out that regional assemblies doesn't mean the same thing as the Scottish and Welsh devolved governments, it means something else which I don't know much about. I have to admit it but still, the conservatives don't have any policies regarding the regions (of England) governing themselves either. Depends on your point of you, I tend to think we should have people who know the area well making decisions and living near to the people they have to answer to.
Although I'm interested in politics I just can't get worked up about this - mostly because I don't live in London. Curiously, my wife who is usually disinterested in politics was outraged that Ken had lost.
Also, did I misinterpret Jenny's post which expresses concerns about the Tories pandering to the BNP but then goes on to support steps towards Welsh independence because "the English living here have time to decide whether to become Welsh citizens or whether to move out"? Am I missing some ironic twist? If not it sounds a bit "Wales for the Walians" to me.
I'm old enough to remember Labour being in power, then not in power, then in power again briefly, then not in power for a very long time, and in order to get electable again, they had to cut out a little piece of their heart (ie. Clause IV). It was a Faustin pact with the devil that has since come back to bite Labour supporters on the arse.
If Clause 4's your touchstone AC, that would place the last electable/elected version at James Callaghan's government of the late 70s wouldn't it? I also remember those times well, and the predecessors under Harold Wilson, along with the union led debacle that followed - and the Thatcher government that followed THAT.
I would argue that the really damaging Faustian pact which came back to bite etc. was the one made with the unions and union leaders in the 60s and 70s, who to a man subsequently totally abused their positions of power, leaving the Labour Party well up Unelectable Avenue by the time of Michael Foot and Peter Shore in the 80s.
People of my father's generation and I suppose mine by reflection, have never forgiven Labour for letting that happen. The results for the 83 and 87 elections for Kettering (on Wikipedia if interested) show how far Labour were off the beam - third place with SDP second in both cases. I remain resident in a marginal constituency so do look forward to the fact that every few years my precious vote might well count towards something.
At the same time I can't justify that people in general should keep paying more and more every year for a promised outcome that is never delivered. It's an unpleasant situation to be in and I do not want to let outright self interest inform my choices - but where to draw the line, Andrew, that is the question..
I used to be a fairly active member of the Labour party, but now I think I would rather have the Tories in charge than this lot. I even prefer Boris to slimeball Ken.
Wow, I've never confused "view" with "you" before, I must have been tired.
David Jockney, I'm sorry you got that impression, I was trying to find a way of wording my comment so I wouldn't sound like that, but I obviously failed.
For the record I'm not anti-English and on the issue of immigration as a whole I don't think we should tell ANYONE "you can't live here". Because morally I don't really feel that we have a right to tell anyone to keep off our land. How that works in practice I don't know, that's why I don't go into politics.
What I was trying to get across is that Wales needs to go back to independence, we got invaded, we were controlled, we lost a lot of belief in ourselves and we have never been very happy with the arrangement. Like most countries in the Empire we want out. But, as many people will remember, we only voted 25% for the parliament. This is surely affected by a large population of English settlers who preferred to think of Wales as a part of England/Britain who didn't learn the language or about its history.
Many Welsh people had hardly had time to get used to these new ideas, I know people in their 60s who were caned if they were heard speaking Welsh in the playground. If independence had happened immediately instead of the gradual re-adoption of the language and powers given to the Welsh Assembly, the results could have been bad. There are pockets of anti-English people who have been very angry who might have given the English a hard time. The English would have been caught on the back foot - having to go from one way of thinking to another.
I'm sorry the sentence sounded aggressive, I meant that if English people didn't like the way they see the country being run, they could leave prior to independence, not that I want them to. I am happy for every one of them to stay, we live together pretty peacefully and nearly all have an appreciation for what a wonderful country this is. I think independence is pretty much inevitable and that there's not much even the tories could do to stop it (although I don't know what their current policy is).
Yes, Jenny has a point. If Cameron gets in, then Scotland will also want to go its own way. The irony is that there is not a majority for 'little Scotlander' status, but there is a demand for a decent, civil society based on social democratic principles - good health service, education etc - which are not based on free market economics (otherwise known as devil take the hindmost). Alex Salmond has also expressed his opposition to Iraq, nuclear arms, and wants to do more about climate change. He has shown a majority of the country are happy with this, and this is more important than issues about nationality. The irony is of course that all he is doing is espousing policies a Labour government should be completely comfortable with, and should be promoting (which would also lessen the demand for independence). Instead, Blair and Brown have merely followed the Thatcher project to its logical conclusion and are now reaping the consequences. The only Labour politician who has followed his own principles and gained a wide degree of admiration is Ken Livingstone, despite his recent ejection. There is a lesson there for the PR obsessed Labour party, who are more concerned with placating the Daily Mail readers than following through with what people want.
It seems Boris has already made his mark on City Hall -- http://newsbiscuit.com/images/1538.jpg
Jenny - Thanks for clarifying what you meant and, seriously, I'm the last person you need to apologise to. The tone of my post, on hindsight, was a tad pious.
Ian - I agree - the SNP seems to be gaining ground by simply picking up on policies that were once axiomatic to Labour. They managed a similar feat in the 70s earning themselves, round my way at least, the epithet of "Tartan Tories".
I mourn the fact that Boris's victory will simply mean more egotistical show-boating from the likes of Widdecombe and, dear god, Blessed on HIGNFY. (Although it is quite fun to watch Paul Merton and Ian Hislop's position as "the talent" being undermined and their discomfort)
What can I say? I live in the sticks and am a traditional Labour voter. I went and spoiled my paper to show my disgust at the lot of them. British politics are are a very low point with no choice and little interest.
I would love to see voting made compulsory,I honestly think it would change the face of our politics...
AnonoNick
Give Boris time to cock up before jumping all over him. Maybe he'll surprise you all - it's not as if he isn't something of a wildcard, and a risk to the Tories.
I've been amazed by how many of my London-based friends thought they were making some sort of wildly radical gesture by voting for a man whose vocabulary contains the word 'picaninnies'. One of them told me she was 'showing the real politicians that we'd rather have a clown than any of them'. Which shows how perversely well Boris's stage persona has worked.
A sad day indeed.
The Eighties revival has well and truly started.
I agree with Andrew on mostt of this. Boris isn't just a buffoon he's a bigoted man with unpleasant views on homosexual marriage ("why not three men and a dog?") and on race relations.
Yes, to some extent the mayor is a figurehead, but he is also in charge of a £10bn budget, and so in that sense it could be argued Boris is the most powerful Tory in the UK.
Ken had any flaws, the corruption scandal that engulfed his campaign, and so on. But he seemed at heart a decent man. He stood against the war in Iraq, he stood up for ordinary Londoners, and he stood against the domination of the car in society by introducing the congestion charge, and investing in public transport.
So, yes, I am disappointed that Ken has left office. One thing I could never understand was why he rejoined the Labour party. He didn't seem to have much in common with New Labour, and I'm sure it cost him votes.
Anyway, I'm a commuter so I dopn't get to vote despite lworking in London, so my voice didn't count.
* * *
On the subject of the overall local elections, I think it has been devestating for Brown. I still don't understand why he increased tax on the poorest in soceity - surely Labour's core voting block? Did he not realise that enacting measures that hurt your core constituency are likely to make them not want to vote for you.
There was an interesting item on Bremner Bird and Fortune where they showed various Labour speeches over the last 40 years complaining about the gap between rich and poor. And they contrasted this with some of the property that people like Blair have recently bought. It all gives the impression of an aloof out of touch elite in the Labour party, with close links to the rich and powerful, and little interest in the ordinary person.
I just wonder what position we would be in if John Smith hadn't died. I think he would have been the perfect leader to bring the Labour party into the 21st century without selling out the heart of the party like Tony Blair did.
For those who are angry at the removal of the 10p tax band (and from looking at the BBC website, an awful lot of the backlash is as a result of this plus the increase in domestic fuel costs - gas/ electricity was privatised by the Conservatives so why this is Gordon Brown's fault is beyond me), if we look back at the time when Labour came into power, there was no 10p tax band (wasn't the minimum tax band 23 or 25p?), no minimum wage (my boyfriend's neighbour at the time was earning less than £2 an hour working as a security guard and he did enough hours to pay tax on that!) and VAT on gas and electricity bills was 17.5%.
Having said all that, as much as it breaks my heart to say it, I'd vote for almost any party (not the BNP obviously) that will abolish this stupid idea of ID cards. It's the single most important issue for me at the moment.
Deb Holt
I am gutted about Boris for sure, but more worrying for me is that facist Barnbrook getting a seat on the London Assembly.
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