Boris Watch

We’ve previously covered Boris’s backtracking on his pre-election pledge to fund more Rape Crisis Centres. (As I may have said before, I find it interesting that David Cameron has also promised some more of these under a future Conservative government: where’s the joining of the dots in the national media? Why did no-one ask Cameron [...]

(I’ve been writing this in dribs and drabs this afternoon and Tom’s beaten me to the thrust of it, with more panache of course, so feel free to skip over this one for his post instead…)
Listeners to this lunchtime’s World at One on BBC Radio 4 were treated to Boris attempting to coin a new [...]

(Of course, if this “Stop Boris” is as successful as the last one, he’ll romp home with flying colours…)
Just remembered – with only 3½ hours’ voting to go – that Boris has made the shortlist for Channel 4 News’s Political Impact Award. So if you don’t want him to win, you’ll need to go and [...]

I’ve just caught up with this morning’s Andrew Marr Show, whose eponymous host was elsewhere. In his absence, Fiona Bruce tackled our typically underbriefed Mayor on a range of issues, including the only significant article about him in today’s newspapers, which he said he hadn’t even seen.
First, they covered the issue of Heathrow expansion. I [...]

I’m not sure watching Mayor’s Question Time is doing a lot for my health – it’s certainly giving me a headache – but since I’m stuck at home ill it seems remiss not to tune in to the webcast.
So far I’ve been pleased to see two members of the Axis of Progress – the Greens’ [...]

The Evening Standard started an annual list of the 1000 most ‘influential’ Londoners last October, so today saw the publication of the second list.
I don’t have the full list – that involves paying them money – but I can compare their online coverage of the two lists. Can you detect any changes in tone since [...]

Of course, Boris still tries to avoid being interviewed as much as possible, and he hasn’t been grilled on the London segment of the Politics Show for some time, but this week’s story about the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has gone national so Boris today put in an appearance on the national Politics Show instead.
You can [...]

We know from Boris’s reticence about explaining quite with whom he ‘consulted widely’ that, er, he didn’t consult widely at all about forcing out Sir Ian Blair.
But now it’s emerged that Boris’s other line of defence – that it was Ian Blair’s decision alone to resign, and he hadn’t been expecting it at all – [...]

The controversy over Boris’s breach of due process yesterday has rightly rumbled on today.
First, this morning’s Guardian front page gave some extra insight, including the extraordinary revelation that Boris
insisted no permanent successor needed to be appointed until the Conservatives took over in Downing Street

So for the sake of getting a politically correct (I intend to [...]

I’ve been out this evening since not long after Blair resigned, but I’ve just come home to catch up on the coverage and noticed this quote from Boris’s brief statement, which I overlooked earlier:
He will be especially remembered for his successful introduction in London of the Safer Neighbourhood teams and for falling crime levels virtually [...]