Boris Watch

Boris has finally grasped what we’ve been saying for a while – sticking to a contract expiry timetable for bendy replacement means 100 or so bendies in service in May 2012, likely more than any species of Routemaster and thus highly politically damaging.  Naturally no stone must be left unturned and no pound unspent to [...]

TfL’s budget meeting has, as expected, canned the Greenwich Waterfront Transit and deferred the (rather expensive) Baker Street step-free access project.  The spin is, as usual, so heavy in the air you can taste it:
Step change increase in investment to deliver major milestones for Tube upgrades, Crossrail, the East London Line, DLR and Cycle Hire [...]

These cartoons are pretty good. For instance:
Boris at the Olympics: high dive

Hopefully it’ll keep going until the next Olympics!

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 [...]

Brian Coleman has declared that Britain’s Olympic medal are “tainted with the blood of tibetans“. A wounded Boris has replied, “preposterous“.

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 [...]

So, who’s looking forward to the Olympic Party?

Well, nuts to you all. Who couldn’t be excited by this:
“David Beckham is to star in a spectacular handover ceremony when Beijing passes the Olympic flag to London on Sunday.”
“Beckham, 33, will be driven into the Bird’s Nest stadium on a red double decker bus watched by millions [...]

Up to 28 screens are to be erected across Britain to broadcast action from the Beijing and 2012 Olympic Games. Permanent screens in Cardiff, Middlesbrough, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Swansea and Waltham Forest will televise the Beijing Olympics, with others in Bristol and Norwich dependent upon planning permission.
LOCOG have stated that these screens will be part of [...]

On the Today programme, Boris was asked questions about a memorandum of understanding, which pledges that Londoners, in the case of Olympic overspending, will not suffer from an “increase in the Council Tax precept or an increase in Fares”.
Boris “ha[dn't] seen” the document, but was sure that it was “not central to the issue“. Later, [...]