Boris Watch

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 [...]

Regular readers, and we know where you live, will recall occasional references to a Theory of Boris to describe the psychological and Kremlinological analyses we occasionally do in an attempt to determine why Boris does what he does when he does.  Rather than break things down into, say, a General and a Special Theory of [...]

5th May 2008, GLA press release:
“We face a wave of violent crime amongst young people in the Capital. Kids are killing other kids. Ray will be part of my team who will work night and day until we put an end to this tragic trend.
“Working with voluntary groups across the Capital, we will make a [...]

Things are moving at a fast pace in Boris world, with the recent stumbles over airport policy being followed by further departures from the administration, although at least in this case it’s not people whom Boris only recently appointed.  That’s not necessarily a good thing – as a Captain the time to worry is not [...]

Paul Waugh at his Evening Standard blog:
“Insiders claim that Mr Boles was closely involved in the appointment of each of the three figures who have been forced to quit – former Deputy Mayor Ray Lewis, former deputy chief of staff James McGrath and now Tim Parker. I’m told that a power struggle with Sir Simon [...]

So far we have the Labour Group unsurprisingly putting the boot in (via Tory Troll’s comments):
The chaos on the 8th floor is now a huge issue.
Relationships on the 8th floor are riddled with tensions and, whilst Boris was keen to give him this position of First Deputy Mayor, Parker’s colleagues were clearly not supportive. Parker [...]

Mayorwatch reports:
City Hall has this morning announced that Tim Parker, the businessman brought in by Boris Johnson to reform the Greater London Authority and chair Transport for London, will be stepping down from his position as ‘First Deputy Mayor’.
Oh dear.  To lose one Deputy Mayor could be considered a misfortune.  To lose two looks like [...]

A few days ago, Dave Hill spotted this in Mayor’s report to the Assembly for 10th September.
“Agreed the award of and entry into a contract with Egon Zehnder for search and selection services to assist with the recruitment of 2-3 senior appointments within the Mayor’s Office (agreeing an exemption to the Authority’s contracts code of [...]

It’s been common thread of my Boris Watching that the most interesting early conflicts in his Mayoralty would come when the fantasy and exaggeration of the Conservative campaign came up against reality [for a quick primer, try here, here, here and here].  What’s usually happened is that Boris will cursorily welcome  some clear improvement directly [...]

It’s been revealed that during investigations for the soon to be released audit report, Patience Wheatcroft contacted Ken Livingstone offering a formal meeting with the panel.
“Dear Mr Livingstone, You will be aware that the current Mayor asked me to chair a Forensic Audit Panel looking into the operations of the GLA and the LDA. During [...]