Boris Watch

Speaking on tonight’s Any Questions?, on which Ken Livingstone was also a guest, Sir Simon Milton, Boris’s knife-wielding Deputy Mayor for Policy and Planning, said without the slightest equivocation that Boris has said he will continue with half-price bus fares for Londoners on income support.
Unfortunately no-one challenged this statement, but given that Income Support claimants [...]

The Labour Councillors of Barnet alerted me earlier to the brewing storm over Brian Coleman’s comments on the British Olympians being “tainted with the blood of Tibetans” and leaving “their consciences at passport control”, mentioned earlier by a fellow Boris Watcher.
They sent me a scanned copy of the article, which you can see in full [...]

Thanks to the Tory Troll, I realise what a useful tool Twitter can be for finding out world opinion on topical matters. Here are some search results indicating people’s reactions to Boris’s first appearance on the world stage in front of millions (billions?) of viewers at yesterday’s Olympics closing ceremony:

Twitter search: "Boris Johnson" OR (London [...]

Quick note for Twitter users: channel4news are soliciting questions for Alex Thomson to put to Boris in Beijing later today. Why not give them some suggestions?
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Channel 4 News wants questions for Boris”, url: “http://www.boriswatch.co.uk/2008/08/22/channel-4-news-wants-questions-for-boris/” });

A gold medal for whoever found the clip of Tim Parker saying this to BBC London on the Politics Show on 13 July:
I’m here to get the job done. You won’t find me disappearing over the hill in a couple of months.

He was right, of course – it’s only been one month.
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “BBC London [...]

I’ve been in central London quite a lot lately (as well as generally all over the place for weeks, which is why I’ve not been doing much in the way of blogging lately), so I’ve been delighted to be reacquainted with the horrors of the Evening Standard display boards.
Last Friday I couldn’t move for being [...]

A couple of Boris bits from the latest Eye. First, from Rotten Boroughs:
Boris & Ken
“The trouble we have — and it is one of the few things in politics which makes me almost wild with anger — is the sale of the playing fields, above all the sale of the playing fields in state schools,” [...]

It’s well known that the post of Mayor of London is one of the most powerful in the UK, with very little anyone can do to stop the Mayor doing more or less whatever he (or perhaps one day she) wants.
Boris’s election added to the problem, because the Conservatives hold more than a third of [...]

Assuming this news release from the previous Mayor is accurate, it appears Boris’s wasted money account has notched up another £7m.
Boris Johnson has been forced to give £7 million back to Venezuela following his decision to cancel the Agreement between Ken Livingstone and the Venezuelan government which exchanged cheap diesel for technical advice and assistance [...]

Having been away and/or busy for a few weeks now I’m a bit – just a bit, mind – out of touch with all things Boris. Fortunately, not only do I have the archives of handy blogs like our own to bring me up to speed, but also Dave Hill’s pulled together a great Comment [...]