Will Boris Johnson wreck London?
May 5th, 2008To the dismay of the left of centre media, Boris Johnson, is now the Mayor of London. His reputation is as a buffoon, and since he learnt his buffonery on the playing fields of Eton, many of his jokes involve making fun of the lower orders. Many of these gaffes have been repeated in newspaper articles over the last few days; you can find the full list in Wikipedia. But, as Euan Ferguson pointed out in an article in The Observer just after Johnson announced he wanted to stand to be mayor of London, beneath the buffonery and easy charm, there is a tough and ruthless inner man.
These days, however well-connected they are, people don’t get into Balliol College, Oxford, unless they are also pretty clever.
Johnson can be very funny, as anyone who has seen him on the popular television programme, Have I got news for you, will testify. But two of Johnson’s most serious gaffes, the blanket attacks on the people of Liverpool in 2004 and a similar attack in
They came from the journalism at which he leant to excel, the journalism of The Spectator weekly magazine.
The Spectator is one of Britain’s oldest weekly magazines, and since it was founded in 1828 has excelled in fine writing, witty commentary, and top quality criticism. For most of it’s history it’s political position has been slightly right of centre, though it has always (and still does today) employed columnists with a wide range of political convictions. But in 1966, when Nigel Lawson became editor, its political position moved to the far right. It was one of the first protagonists of Thatcherism. Ever since then it has been a breeding ground for ideas and people of the New Right.
Lawson went on in 1979 to be the first Chancellor of the Exchequer in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet. He is the same Nigel Lawson, who has been in the news of the last week or two, because his new book puts forward the thesis that scientists who have been warning us of the threat of global warming have taken leave of their scientific senses; ‘Global warming is a new religion’, Lawson argues.
Johnson shares many of Lawson’s political views. And he delivers them quite often in a style of robust attack on the consensus and the politically correct, ridiculing people who hold opposing views. Additionally, while he was editor of The Spectator, Johnson literally got into bed with one his staff, Petronella Wyatt, the daughter of Lord Wyatt, one of Thatcher’s most fervant supporters.
All of this, which is absoutely true, is bad news for Londoners. But, in fact, Johnson is a complex and contradictory character. Despite his fling with Wyatt girl, his wife forgave him, and campained seemingly happily on his behalf in the mayoral campaign. Marina Wheeler is not a wifey in the old Conservative style. She is a successful lawyer. And she is the daughter of Sir Charles Wheeler, who is the wisest of all British journalists still alive when it comes to US politics. And his own political position, mostly concealed beneath a BBC-style determination to impartial reporting, I guess to be distinctly liberal.
And also, Johnson has been a close friend since Oxford days, of fellow Old Etonian, David Cameron, the new leader of the Conservative Party. Cameron took a risk in backing the maverick Johnson as Conservative candidate for London mayor. He has taken an even bigger risk as leader by bringing the Conservative Party away from Thatcherism and towards the centre. The Conservsative victory inn the local government elections on May Day was so overwhelming that Labour cannot win the next election.
But Cameran can lose it, if he and his party make some disastrous mistakes. And the one person who can lose it for him is his old chum, Boris. Because he has the most high profile Conservative job in the country. So the first test on Cameron Conservatisim in power wilrl be the Johnson governance of London.
So the well-being of Londoners will depend on whether Johnson in the prisoner of his Thatcherite friends, and continues to take his rhetoric and policies from them, or whether he listens to his friends among the Cameronians, and to his wife and father-in-law.
And at this time, we should remember that Ken Livingstone, when he took over as mayor, by many as far left, and was, then disliked intensely by many in new Labour. And in power he has proved statesmanlike, working on behalf of all Londoners, rather than imposing policial doctrine. And, as I am sure the shrewd Johnson has noticed, he did much better than the Labour candidates in the local elections, despite the persistent vicious daily attacks on him, by the London Evening Standard.
So I am not entirely pessimistic. He paid fullsome tribute to Livingston’s achievments as Mayor of London, which was not just politeness. So I don’t think he will want to overturn successful Livingstone policies, like the congestion charge, which done so much wonders for improving London’s traffic flow, has enabled the buses to get around much more quickly, and has reduced London’s contribution to global warming. And I don’t think there is much risk that he will embrace Lawson’s views on global warming, because Cameron clearly does listen to scientists.
But I do hope that he will fulfill immediately one of his election pledges, to get rid of Britain’s bendy buses, which are twice as long as the double deckers. They are a hazard for London’s growing number of cyclists, although as Livingstone pointed out, no cyclist has been killed by a bendy bus. But it is obvious to anyone who has goes around London on two wheels, as I do, that it is only a matter of time, before a fatality happens.
It is one of the few things that Johnson can do quickly, by twistings the arms of Transport for London, rather than by inventing a new structure. The problem is not as large because the bendy buses are a minority. The majority of the buses are the new double deckers. Johnson in his campaign talked about bringing back the old Routemasters, one of the most popular buses in London’s recent history. To build a new fleet of them would take years. And is quite un-necessary. The new double deckers are much, much better for the many mothers, with pushchairs and young children and for those in wheelchairs.
He should however stick with his pledge to bring back the bus conductors, even though that option is derided by the Thatcherite right, but it would require a subsidy. But it would help to reduce the occasional violence on London buses, from the heavy drinking minority. And it would fit in with Cameron’s attempt to create a new Conservatism with a human face.