Prospect carries an interesting article on Blondon’s first birthday…
As the election neared Nicholas Boles, former director of pro-Cameron think-tank Policy Exchange, was parachuted in. Yet Boles’s arrival, which began as an effort to protect the Tory reputation for efficient governance, unintentionally hobbled Johnson’s first year, as City Hall became riddled with factionalism.
Within barely a month of victory, Boles was alarmed to find that his question “What will we achieve in the first 100 days?” was being ignored. Tory modernisers blamed senior City Hall Tories, labelling deputy mayor Richard Barnes and assembly member Brian Coleman as “the passé posse.” The insiders, in turn, allied themselves with Johnson’s powerful gatekeeper Simon Milton.
Much of this was said before – and, I’d suggest, better – in m’comrade’s Theory Of Boris March 2009…
It’s obvious in retrospect that there was an almightly power struggle in the first four months of the Mayoralty between the two groups, which, aided by some colossal cockups by the Policy Exchange crew (Ray Lewis in particular, who was heavily pushed by them), led to a near total victory by the Borough Boys, with Sir Simon Milton ousting Tim Parker as the main figure in the administration, and two out of four directorates in the revised structure being led by them, with Boris’s mainly PX-influenced policy team pretty much marginalised. There’s no point coming up with radical policies if the Borough Boys control the money.
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Interesting article, if a bit too accepting of the official ‘meeja’ version of pre-Boris City Hall and indeed Boris pre-City Hall – for ‘bald honesty’ read ‘writes anything that sounds good, regardless of the truth’.
Very gratifying to find our own considered judgment about the CCO v. Borough Boys battle is now the official media version of course, albeit some months late. Also that my conscious attempt not to adhere to the convention ‘first 100 days’, ‘first year’ milestones bore fruit.
Actually, the main change since March has been an interesting schism between the proper Borough Boys and the City Hall Massive, who are beginning (Milton again, I suspect) to start exploring the boundaries of the office. The boroughs, naturally, want the GLA to eat itself thin and then eff off. Milton, like any good politician suddenly thrust into a seat of power, almost certainly finds the thought of the erosion of said power not quite as compelling an argument as formerly. Barnet may not be the last case of a direct challenge to Boris from the boroughs.