[further perusing of Mayor's Questions leads to one from the 18th June that I missed]
Who elected these two idiots?
Question by James Cleverly
Mr Mayor, I think Ms Shawcross’ line of questioning again demonstrates the obsession that that side of the Chamber has with the micro management of every single issue of London life. Will you give me an undertaking that, in this issue as with other issues, you will take a sensible practicable pragmatic approach and if the orbital bus service is popular and if it does relieve or reduce demand for certain radial routes, that we will not be obsessed with maintaining things for the sake of their holy cow status and that we will actually allow transport experts to get on with the planning of routing and frequency of bus services rather than managed by dictat, the colour of tie clip and cap worn by the people staffing these vehicles?
Answer by Boris Johnson
Yes. I must say I am very moved and thrilled by the excitement that Joanne and others are evincing about the exact details of the competition and exactly what the functions of the conductors are going to be. I do think that it is a good thing that people are showing such interest but we should not be prejudging now the outcome of the competition or the detail of the new generation bus except we all know roughly what the outline of the project will be. Certainly I think it is time for fresh thinking on some of these bus routes. I think I am right in saying there has not been a change to the bus routes for is it 30 years?
James Cleverly, whom I’ve actually met and thought was a nice chap, is turning into a bit of a tit here, and needs to pull his head in. It’s his job as an Assemblyman and member of the Transport Committee to bone up on what’s really going on in London’s transport, scrutinise the Mayor’s policies and provide as much of a check on the executive as possible in a system that isn’t really geared up for that. So what does he do when given the opportunity to question the Mayor? Lobs in a tired old leftie bashing cliche, just as if he was back in the comments at Iain Dale’s blog. Pathetic. His contributions in commitee meetings so far have been equally mindless, I’m sorry to say.
Valerie Shawcross’s ‘crime’, in Cleverly’s eyes, was trying to nail down Boris to a sensible answer on the trivial question of funding orbital bus routes and keeping bus fares down. Obviously the prospect of the Chair of the Transport Committee actually questioning the Mayor on issues of importance to the Transport Commitee is an outrageous impertinence. We might start having a democracy next, and heaven knows where that might lead.
Boris Johnson’s answer isn’t much cop either - no change to bus routes in 30 years my arse. He’s so wrapped up in his open-backed bus fantasy that he doesn’t seem to have noticed the large increase in big red things moving about in new and interesting ways. He needs to open a web browser and bookmark (someone show him how, please) this site. I’m at a loss as to why he’s so obsessed with running buses sideways across south London or why he thinks the current routes all go via Oxford Street. Has he got a map?
If you’ve not had your fill of idiocy, read this one and weep.
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2 responses so far ↓
A stunning example of how out of touch and ignorant Boris is. Has he seen many Red Arrow buses recently, then?
Shawcross and Pidgeon seem to be spot on in their questions, which is probably why Cleverly brought out the “micro-management” argument. Boris dodged the questions, so I hope that they’re going to ask the questions again.
Talking of 30 years ago: that takes us back to the time of Horace Cutler who I remember saying that he wanted rid of all conductors and Routemasters within 5 years. The Conservative Party seems to not have liked conductors and Routemasters when they were useful but wants to spend good money on bringing them back as icons. What does this tell us about the Conservative Party?