Boris Watch

The new LDA Board has been revealed.
There are four statutory elected members:

James Cleverly AM Conservative, London Assembly
Cllr Peter Truesdale, Lib Dem, Lambeth
Cllr Mike Freer, Conservative, Barnet
Jeremy Mayhew, Non-party Common Councilman, City Corporation

And 9 business members:

Harvey McGrath: Chair of the LDA Board
Tim Parker: First Deputy Mayor
Steven Norris: Transport for London Board Member
Susan Angoy: Advisory Board Member [...]

Does Boris really expect Londoner to believe he cares for the environment? You might recall Siân Berry and the Alliance Against Urban 4×4s asked the Mayor what he’d do for greener transport in London. He effectively gave them their answer today by cancelling an order for 60 hydrogen vehicles.
These vehicles were to lead the way [...]

Weird press release from TfL just in:
Transport for London to terminate £100m a year Oyster contract.
The Mayor and Transport for London (TfL) are convinced that any new contract will deliver enhanced services for less money, driving significant savings.
The Mayor is keen to improve the Oyster card to make it even more attractive for Londoners and [...]

Compare and contrast:
a) The GLA contemplates the future of the Congestion Charge Western Extension:
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has delivered another key manifesto pledge by announcing that a five-week public consultation on the future of the Western Extension will begin in early September.
Anyone with an opinion to share or comment to make on the [...]

What is it with this numerology of the ‘first hundred days’?  I don’t get it myself, all it does is encourage new leaders to take bad short term decisions, as we’ve seen.  Still, there we go - we do get this snippet from Matthew Taylor to bolster our case that a major Boris problem is [...]

I’ve lately been reading the skyscrapercity.com site, not because I’m a particular fan of skyscrapers but because they have interesting Boris coverage from an angle not normally found elsewhere - the point of view of the city rather than the politics.  They’ve got a big thread going on Parliament Square and, on the whole, aren’t [...]

Well, hydrogen power.  It is, let us remember, just a way of moving electricity rather inefficiently from one place to another.  It’s not the answer to global warming on its own, you require a carbon-neutral electricity supply first and if you’ve got that, why not have electrically powered vehicles like trams or metros, which do [...]

I can only assume our Mayor has been at the metal polish:

Parliament piazza plan scrapped
He said: “This scheme would have turned a green glade of heroes into a vast, blasted, chewing-gummed piazza.

Eh?  Parliament Square, as Boris might have noticed since he’s worked there for several years, is about the most policed place in England.  Anyone [...]

Boris speaks:
As I said throughout the campaign I do want to protect the beautiful historic views of London,’ he said. ‘I think it is crazy that there are two sites in London which are under some sort of UNESCO preservation order because they are in danger of salami slicing away the views of the Westminster [...]