Category: Mayor Johnson

Boris Johnson was in Greenford this morning at Greenford Conservative Club to launch his campaign in Ealing and Hillingdon. He was introduced by the current assembly member, Richard Barnes (right above) and Cllr Ian Gibb (middle), who is also the prospective parliamentary candidate for the Ealing North constituency, thanked them both for coming to Ealing. The fairy lights were, er, a nice touch I suppose.

Having been to a few Boris events so far, none of it was new to me but the audience of local councillors and activists were very pleased to see their man. His main message was that there was no room for complacency and now the task was to get people out to vote. I think that in many ways the narrow ICM poll published by the Guardian yesterday is great timing for the Tories – the last thing you need to do is take the foot off the gas four weeks before polling day. Taking Boris at his word Cllr Reen and I went off with one of our new activists and delivered 500 leaflets between us.

Boris launched his environment manifesto today. See the full document here. Standard report here.

On Tuesday the Mayor did his environment thing, see Standard again here. The Mayor likes to make out that he is Mr Green and is highlighting his alliance with the Green Party.

Boris’s document lays out what a London Mayor can achieve in practice whilst the Mayor is trying to save the world. The Mayor’s approach also betrays his Zone 1 focus.

As I have said before the Mayor has not been shy about using public funds for green electioneering, for instance £3.3 million for LEZ and emissions related congestion charging ads. The later “gas guzzler” charge and Boris Johnson’s antipathy to it figure prominently in the Mayor’s pitch even though his own documents make it clear that it will have no effect on CO2 or general pollution. The LEZ is another environmental scam, see here, but in Johnson’s document he promises to leave it alone.

We are passionately committed to improving London’s air quality. We must act to deal with the estimated 1000 deaths per year caused by air pollution. The ‘polluter pays’ principle that lies behind the Low Emission Zone is fair. We believe the LEZ is a step in the right direction.

On one level I am disappointed by that but it is probably sensible politics as it would cause a lot of uncertainty and confusion to withdraw the scheme now. It is though an object lesson in how not to do environmental projects. As is another the Mayor’s schemes to subsidise loft insulation. Boris’ document says:

The Mayor’s principal policy for improving the energy efficiency of domestic properties has been a heavily-publicised money back scheme, funded in conjunction with British Gas. With this scheme, the household receives a postal order after they have ordered insulation. The money offered depends on whether the insulation is self-installed (£50) or professionally fitted (£100).

But the most recent figures show that just 3,098 Londoners have signed up to the Mayor’s scheme to insulate their homes (the target was 30,000 homes by 1 June 2007). This is despite more than £2.2 million spent on marketing and publicity – with just £300,000 spent on actually insulating properties. We are certain that this performance can be bettered and we will promote an alternative scheme that uses Council Tax rebates to persuade owner occupiers to install insulation.

Rather like the Mayor’s Oyster card give away which cost £800K in advertising, the purpose of insulation scheme is to promote the Mayor rather than to change the world, or even a few London attics.

I nicked this chart off the Political Betting website. They had a posting yesterday showing how the gambling market (read more at https://www.toponlinecasino.my/) had moved against Livingstone over the course of the last week as the consequences of the budget and last week’s poor Labour polling have sunk in.

It seems to me as I take stock over the Easter weekend that Boris has won the air war and now it is about the land campaign. To take my military analogy further the campaign will be decided by boots on the ground. According to the Sunday Times Caroline Spelman, the Tory chairman, has written to all 194 MPs and prospective candidates telling them to spend five days campaigning for Johnson.

I am out leafleting this afternoon. Go Boris!

Today was a another bad day for the Mayor.

Andrew Gimson in the Telegraph this morning is another voice pointing out that the Mayor is talking about Boris too much:

Ken Livingstone has shown signs, during the launch of his bid for re-election as London mayor, of becoming obsessed by Mr Johnson.

Rightly, Gimson also points out that Doreen Lawrence does no credit to the memory of her murdered son by turning him into a pawn in Livingstone’s game. Gimson says:

Mr Livingstone advanced under cover of a heart-felt endorsement from Doreen Lawrence, the mother of the murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence, who said: “Ken has given tremendous support to the Stephen Lawrence Centre which is in memory of my son. I do not believe the Tory candidate would have had such commitment to the centre.”

These were harsh words. Mrs Lawrence claimed that racist attacks have fallen by more than 50 per cent since Mr Livingstone became mayor, and said this “culture of openness, tolerance and mutual respect” will be endangered if he loses.

But since the culture of openness, tolerance and mutual respect already excludes Mr Johnson, one could say it is already endangered by the methods adopted by Mr Livingstone, and especially by the tactic of getting a bereaved mother to run down his rival.

Tonight Andrew Gilligan in the Evening Standard added to the gaiety of the nation yet again with his piece describing e-mails exhanged between public servant, and seriously over-paid champange socialist clearly, Peter Hendy, Transport Commissioner, effectively Chief Exec of Transport for London and Livingstone’s weasly little chief of staff, Simon Fletcher (salary £124K in 2005/6) who recently stood down to fight the election campaign. Hendy’s £320K salary comes as a surprise to Iain Martin in the Telegraph although Londoner’s will not be surprised to hear of yet another example of TfL paying too much.

Sain Berry, hard left entryist into the Green Party and their Mayoral candidate, has effectively come out for Ken. No suprise there then. It really doesn’t help.

Almost a month ago I said that the Mayor should shut up about Boris, see previous posting. Tonight Ian Dale agrees with me, see here.

Iain says:

Ken Livingstone’s campaign launch today proved one thing – that the mayor continues to be obsessed by his opponent. Whatever question he is asked by journalists, he always brings the subject back to Boris. This is an odd strategy for a hackneyed old campaigner like Ken to adopt. Normally in his position you’d expect a candidate to rise above the fray and either ignore his opponent or to swat him away like you would an irritating gnat.

The BBC’s coverage of today’s launch of the Mayoral campaign had interviews with both Boris and Livingstone. Whilst Boris’s is positive and engaging Livingstone wastes too much time making cracks about Boris. Livingstone says:

Boris looks to the past.

and

… he is very much a classic Thatcherite believing in small government, not intervening.

The first is just rubbish and the second uses the label Thatcherite as an insult. Fine. The Mayor also repeats his self-incriminating Crossrail scare line:

If a mayor gets that wrong you can bankrupt the city.

Who cut a deal with Gordon Brown that could bankrupt the city? Ken Livingstone – no kind of negotiator, no kind of competent executive mayor thank you.

If you are already bored of the mayoral campaign then tough luck. The actual campaign started at midnight last night so you can expect to hear a lot more about it from now. For myself I am very happy to see Boris doing so well and will be doing all I can to get Boris elected.

Dave Hill reports what Livingstone is up to here.

Meanwhile Boris issued this call to arms overnight:

I nicked this graphic from ConservativeHome. It relates to a YouGov poll in the Evening Standard today showing that Boris is leading Livingstone by 12%. Great news.

I went to his housing and planning manifesto launch event this morning and wrote it up for ConservativeHome here.