Boris Watch

The other 2010 bendy contract award has been revealed by LOTS (back on 22/1/2010, actually).  The 18 will be going to conventional diesel double deckers from 13/11/2010 with a PVR upgrade from 32 to 48.  Let’s check back to our Bendy Replacement Timetable:
18    23-Aug-2003    23-Aug-2008    23-Aug-2010    32    49    23-Aug-2010
Unlike the 149, therefore, this is coming [...]

It would be rather easy to recycle the last story for a story about recycling, but Boris has also announced at today’s MQT that he’s stepping aside from the London Waste and Recycling Board chair in favour of young James Cleverly.  To tell the truth I was a bit surprised he took the job in [...]

News just breaking – Boris has decided to stand down from the chairmanship of the Metropolitan Police Authority due to time pressures, obviously in favour of Kit Malthouse, who must presumably have a bit of time on his hands now he can’t push his silly airport ideas any more.  So after all that kerfuffle with [...]

A report with the cringe-worthy title A Tale Of Two Obes-Cities, examining child obesity in London and New York, was launched by the Mayor at City Hall yesterday.
Mayor Boris Johnson said: “A superb 2012 legacy for London would be the obliteration of childhood obesity. We are championing effective plans across the capital to fight this [...]

London 2012 Cultural Olympiad? Few Londoners have heard of it, yet it’s been running since September 2008. What cultural treats, then, does the Mayor’s Advisor on Arts and Culture have in store for us? A presentation entitled London Culture In 2012, given to a conference organised by the London Civic Forum in June 2009, reveals [...]

In the end it wasn’t a surprise that David Cameron was the man to put the final nail in the coffin of the Thames Estuary Airport idea.  Apart from the increasingly angry tone coming out of Conservative Kent, the stark contradiction to Theresa Villiers soft greenwash and the general fear of Boris at CCHQ these [...]

It’s been so long that we’d forgotten Boris’s manifesto promise to hold an Emergency Rail Summit to hold the Train Operating Companies to account.
Sweeping plans to get all overground railway stations in London to accept pre-pay Oyster cards were unveiled by Boris Johnson today.
The Mayor announced he was meeting private train operators for a crucial [...]

Reading this report of goings on down Vauxhall/Nine Elms way, where Boris’s people are proposing a massive development including tall buildings.  Eh?  Not quite the usual image there:
Various questions were raised about family housing. How exactly are children meant to play, when they live on the 39th floor, you might wonder? The helpful man from [...]

[Updated with times etc. from Helen]
After last year’s surprise success at the Progressive London conference (due mainly to Boris popping out on his dredger trip the week before and giving me a perfect story to illustrate how blogging can interact with politics in real-time) they’ve invited Helen and myself back for this year’s show, along [...]

Boris, shadowed by Green candidate and blogger darryl853, was down in Gallon Close, Charlton today, ostensibly doing something perfectly creditable – examining York Terrace, an excellent development of rented four-bedroom terraced family homes designed by bptw and built by Osborne for housing association Family Mosaic, incorporating the latest Code for Sustainable Homes CSH5 sustainability features [...]