Boris Watch

Tomorrow sees Boris Johnson’s first St George’s Day as Mayor of London and he plans to spend it as he did last year, arriving at Leadenhall Market on a Routemaster and then proclaiming in Latin English about how fantastic he is. He may, however, be somewhat busy after his hearty luncheon of jellied eels and gin.

Last month, we were promised a week of free events for St George’s Day as Boris claimed “St George’s Day has been ignored in London for far too long”, a statement easily demonstrated to be false.  As I’ve been typing this article this evening, a whole page of (non-GLA funded) events has appeared on the GLA website, less than two hours before St George’s Day begins. These events are nothing to do with the GLA or the Mayor and to claim otherwise is disingenuous. If Boris sincerely believes that no events of this type took place before he became Mayor of London, he’s sadly mistaken.

The two GLA-sponsored events, last Sunday’s Shakespeare’s Birthday at the Globe Theatre and a weekend event in Trafalgar Square this Saturday, are just continuing the events sponsored by Ken Livingstone in the preceding five years and with no increase in budget.

Now, if Boris was truly patriotic he would, instead, be preparing to celebrate May Day which is the traditionally-celebrated  ancient festival at this time of year in England. Courtesy of the British Film Institute National Archive I leave you with the 1944 film Springtime In An English Village which shows a verdant English countryside and the children of a rural village school crowning their Queen Of The May:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QbHhm4620I[/youtube]

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