Category: Mayor Johnson

Both the Livingstone and Johnson campaigns today used the same slogan.

Livingstone launched his “6 pledges for London” this morning under the slogan “Better off with Ken”. His pledges are:

• Cut the fares by 7 per cent this year – saving the average Londoner £1,000 over four years
• Reverse Boris Johnson’s police cuts, restore local sergeants
• Help reduce rents, improve homes with a London non-profit lettings agency
• Tackle heating bills – through insulation and an energy co-op to reduce prices and help households save over £150 a year
• London EMA of up to £30 a week to help young people stay in education
• Support for childcare with grants and interest-free loans – and campaign against Tory cuts to childcare tax credits

Every single one of these is either unfunded, so tiny that it will only affect very few people or simply outside the Mayor’s competence or a combination of these!

On the same day the Boris Johnson campaign was using the same slogan but looking back rather than forward and reviewing, in some detail, the promises made in the extensive manifesto documents published by his campaign in 2008. The Johnson campaign is claiming to have delivered 91% of 2008 campaign promises. I am sure that critics will challenge some of the detail but this level of transparency and traceability being offered by a candidate is new to British politics. Usually politicians try to hide their old manifestos so that people can’t hold them to account.

Johnson’s record looks way more plausible than Livingstone’s pledges.

Ealing North MP, Stephen “Call me Steve” Pound, is never shy of making a fool of himself so this video comes as no surprise. He seems quite happy to endorse the Livingstone campaign’s misinformation about public transport and fares.

Pound repeats the misinformation about TfL’s non-existant surplus in spite of this having been debunked by Channel 4’s independent Fact Check blog at the end of January.

Pound also has an intern pulling faces about various alleged transport failings under Boris Johnson. Tfl’s official figures that show Tube performance has improved by 40% under Johnson and indeed one of the main complaints of the fishy Confessions from the Underground “documentary” on Channel 4 was the hard driving by TfL to reduce delays.

Pound calls Boris Johnson out of touch and refers to his much discussed £250,000 earnings from his Telegraph column, which he pays tax on like regular people. Obviously he fails to mention Livingstone’s personal tax evasion scheme called Silveta Limited. It is perfectly legal to set up a limited company in this way but Livingstone looks like a hypocrite for just setting up the company. When he talks about setting political expenses against profit he admits to committing a tax fraud.

With his majority and long-standing service to Ealing Pound can afford to engage in this partisan nonsense without damaging himself too much. No sign of Pound rising above it any time soon.

Today Boris Johnson launched his “9 point plan for a Greater London” at the Tory Spring Conference.

Out campaigning for Boris it is sometimes hard to point to the big, exciting achievements of his mayoralty. Keeping his share of council tax constant for three years and cutting it next year, increasing police numbers by 1,000 and cutting crime, making public transport more reliable and securing Crossrail and the Olympics for London. It is all a bit business as usual. Or at least it would be in normal times. Through the worst modern recession and huge government cuts Boris has kept London’s wheels on. That is a huge achievement and if his 9 point plan looks similarly modest then I say hooray. We don’t need promises we need to keep what we have at the least possible cost. Boris is the man for the times.

Ken Livingstone on the other hand keeps throwing out increasingly ludicrous promises. At the start of the year it was his Fare Deal which was comprehensively debunked by Channel 4’s independent Fact Check blog before January was out. This Thursday Livingstone proposed reinstating the £30 a week EMA for London’s teens. This claim has died before the week was out and again was debunked by the Fact Check blog. The idea that cash strapped colleges and councils are going to hand over millions to Livingstone’s latest new quango to dish out to students is quite simply risible. If Londoners fall for this nonsense I really will despair.

Yesterday Andrew Gilligan did a good piece illustrating the difference in price hike between Livingstone and Johnson. He rightly makes the point that we can judge both men on their record so we should. Gilligan created four scenarios and compared the price increase in council tax precept and combined for each man in their last term in office. Johnson comes out ahead in three out of four cases and draws on the fourth. Livingstone can make implausible promises about fares but his record show he costs you more. Livingstone cost you more when times were relatively good. Johnson costs you less when times are hard. That is worth having.

Case 1: Single person in zone 2, living in a Band-D house, travelling daily to central London by public transport
2004: £989               2008: £1200.36       2012: £1398.04

Case 2: Couple in zone 3, living in a Band-D house, both commuting to central London by public transport.
2004: £2145.33        2008: £2581.82       2012:  £3042.72

Case 3: Couple in zone 5, living in a Band-D house, one commuting to central London by train, one travelling daily in the local area by bus.
2004: £2025.33          2008: £2485.82         2012: £3050.72

Case 4: Couple in zone 6, living in a Band-D house, one commuting to central London by train, one a tradesman with his own van, paying the congestion charge 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year, using autopay if available.
2004: £2973.33        2008: £4013.82          2012: £4602.72

During the course of today as you amuse your children or whatever other challenge today’s public services strike throws up you might like to spare some time to think about how you will cast your vote in the London mayoral elections in May.

On the one hand Ken Livingstone said in an interview for Total Politics magazine in August:

I don’t think the candidates will be too involved in fundraising, after all the problems Blair got into with Lord Levy. Richard E Grant gave money to my campaign, but 80 per cent of my funding will come from the trade unions, and 77 per cent of Boris’ funding will come from individuals, hedge funds, banks, investment boutiques. It’s quite clear, from who funds us, who we represent.

Livingstone is the candidate of organised, mainly public sector, labour.

Boris Johnson made his views pretty clear in the Telegraph on Monday:

We are told that this strike is just the first, and that the union leaderships are planning a long and miserable Seventies-style “winter of discontent.” I very much hope that is not so – and so, to judge by their reluctance even to take part in the ballot, do many thousands of sensible union members.

It is time the Labour Party stopped prevaricating, and came out against the strike. They are the political arm of the unions, and it is from the unions that they receive 86 per cent of their funding. They could call it off tomorrow.

Johnson is the candidate of service users, council tax payers, travellers, parents, etc. Livingstone tries to brand him as the banks’ candidate but it doesn’t really work does it?