Boris Watch

So much for Big Tent Boris and the new caring, green, cuddly Tory Party.  The latest batch of Deputy Mayors has been announced and even a brief google research into the grim coterie of right wing flotsam the new Mayor has chosen to lord it over us suggests it’s going to be a long four years.  So, without further ado, here are Boris’ Eligible Bachelors:

Deputy Mayor Number 1 (Official One) - Richard Barnes.  Already fingered as one of the rabid car loving crew who sank the West London Tram and who think that TfL is run by ‘1979 throwbacks’, he was nailed on for this role, having been head of the Conservative Assembly group.  It’s not a role with a great deal of power, although he does take over if Boris swallows a bad oyster* and has to stand down.

Sample Contribution To London:

London Assembly member Richard Barnes and Mayor Ken Livingstone are having a spat over Heathrow Terminal 5 (T5) bus services. Mr. Barnes had submitted a question to Mr. Livingstone, but withdrew it ‘after it was exposed as being based on a lie,’ according to the Mayor’s website.

Mr. Barnes submitted a question concerning Transport for London’s (TfL) preparations for the opening of Heathrow T5 at the Mayor’s Question Time. This asked the Mayor to reconsider his position regarding ‘Transport for London’s decision to introduce no extra bus routes’ when the new terminal opens in March next year.

He withdrew his question, after it was pointed out that TfL plan to create 3 new bus routes, the 350, 423 and 482 to serve the new terminal. They will also extend the existing 490 and N9 routes to create new passenger links from areas including Southall, Feltham and Richmond directly to Terminal 5.

Deputy Mayor Number 2 (Policing) - Kit Malthouse.  Formerly Deputy Leader of Westminster Council, so at least he doesn’t have to get much of his business card redone.  Notable chiefly for wasting council taxpayers money (and, arguably, GLA money, since they had to fight it) on a doomed challenge to the congestion charge in 2002.  This was inexplicably not mentioned where Andrew Gilligan launched his final hatchet job on Livingstone just before the election, stentoriously taking the Mayor to task for wasting money on challenging Metronet.  Since Livingstone was proved right and Malthouse was proved wrong (the case bizarrely claimed the CC would increase air pollution) I call shenanigans on Mr. Malthouse.

Sample Contribution To London:

The Thames estuary is only four metres deep in parts and it would be relatively simple and cheap to construct an artificial island with a beautiful modern airport on it. All the planes would come in to land over the North Sea, which would mean a 24-hour operation, with no disturbance while expanding capacity, at a stroke. In fact, the airport could easily accommodate all the flights from Gatwick as well, meaning we could probably close it too.

[explanatory note: in 1974 the plans to do just that were ended by three basic facts; it's the wrong side of London, rising oil prices were affecting airline growth and the economy was slowing down.  All three are true today.  Still, it explains where Boris got his late campaign 'big idea' from, despite not having the whiff of the breath of a chance in hell of having the money or powers to do it.  Simple and cheap my arse, and I've got a civil engineering degree.].

Deputy Mayor Number 3 (Government Relations) - Ian Clement.  Formerly Leader of Bexley Council, the Government Relations bit sounds interesting.  There is a surprising amount of umbilical linkage between the UK Government and the GLA/Mayor, the latter’s Strategies have to have regard to national policy, for instance.  Therefore appointing someone to do the go-between is probably essential, if only to keep Boris away from meetings with easily frightened grey faced Whitehall mandarins.  We’re looking for a cool, urbane hand here, who can present a professional image away from the incoherent right wing anarchy I sense developing.

So what do we find?  He’s not actually been appointed to liaise with central government at all, he’s been brought in from the London Councils executive to cement the takeover and emasculation of the GLA by the Boroughs.  Note now how many of the Boris team are from Tory boroughs?  It’s deliberate, this is the Revenge of the Right in full flow.

Sample Contribution To London:

Bexley Council leader Ian Clement, who led the march along with Bexley Conservatives, said there were other ways to save money.

He told BBC London: “The NHS is a cash cow but there are ways to save money without doing what they do. There is nothing with efficiency [sic].

“It is about giving people a service. It’s about doing the right thing, I understand that but people need their local A&E. People need this to remain a district general hospital.”

Very little of any note really, seems to have kept his head down, his nose clean and climbed the ladder through Bexley Council.  Probably fairly hard-boiled (ex-TA member), but doesn’t seem to court publicity in the way Malthouse and Barnes have.  Campaigning against local NHS cuts is bread-and-butter stuff (and another absolute gift from New Labour to London’s Tories, come to that).

Senior Adviser Number 1 (Planning) - Sir Simon Milton.  They’ve evidently got bored with pretending these right-wing advisers are official roles by now.  Sir Simon is (wait for it….oh the suspense…can you guess?) a senior Tory from a Tory borough, in this case Westminster again, where he was/is council leader (I suspect the reason he’s an Adviser rather than a Deputy Mayor is that he may well be staying on).  Now, did the previous GLA regime have any planning problems with Westminster, I wonder.  Yes, of course they did, Milton was strongly opposed to new skyscrapers (I have to say I’m not a particular fan, but a few here and there are fine, and I’m actually quite impressed with current architectural fashion, which hasn’t always been the case) and regularly clashed with Livingstone on planning issues.  Again, one suspects he’s been brought in to make sure the old regime is dead and buried and the Tory boroughs are in charge.

Skyscrapernews.com is worried:

The first indications are now becoming obvious with Boris Johnson appointing, Sir Simon Milton as his senior advisor on planning whereas Ken Livingstone had access to Richard Rogers.

The gulf in creativity and vision between the two speaks volumes. One is the world famous Pritzker Prize winning architect who is widely recognised as one of the leading lights of his generation. The other is a City of Westminster Councillor who is a well known critic of the former mayor’s urban planning and architectural policies. He’s frequently supported NIMBY campaigns in London and tried to have Westminster Council exercise a veto over the planning decisions taken by neighbouring councils.

…

The redevelopment of urban spaces is also likely to suffer. Milton has long been critical of Rogers plans for creating a new group of public plazas and miniature parks through London, believing they are unrealistic because of the motorcar and the domination that roads exercises [sic] over our streets.

Triumph of the NIMBY, then, like Richard Barnes.  No nasty tall buildings and don’t touch our cars.  On that subject, Milton, along with Malthouse, came up with five tests for the congestion charge back in 2003 - looking at them I think it passed with flying colours, not that this will change their minds.

Well, that’s given us a taste of Boris-style government, and very mean-spirited, narrow-minded and sour it seems to me.  Don’t expect inclusivity, blood-stirring measures or eyecatching new initiatives from this lot; it’s a very, very small tent indeed, from a very, very small pool of extremely right-wing senior local government officials.

* the shellfish, not the smartcard.

Tags: 9 Comments