Where I’m right and Boris is wrong…

I have always thought the development of the new Routemaster Bus was a mad, bad waste of time and effort when London has so many more pressing concerns.

And now it seems I’m not the only one; in a recent TFL survey creating the new Routemaster was deemed to be one of the least important projects to be undertaken in London. Only 18% of people thought it was a priority, as Adam points out.

Well, there’s a surprise!

I wonder if Boris is getting bored of being Mayor yet? After all he’s no longer the most powerful Conservative in the country now; should we be expecting him to give up on London and try and get into a safe Tory seat back in Parliament instead?

It wouldn’t surprise me.

Big Sigh I’m all cross now…grrrr….

Posted via web from jochristiesmith's posterous

On bicycle's, on Boris

Having finally gotten around to reading the excellent Dave Hill newsletter I see we are ever closer to having our own version of the velib in London, as part of Boris' legacy of his first, and hopefully, final term.

I'm all for a velib type scheme, it was in fact a Lib Dem policy going into the last Mayoral elections but I do have some reservations about whether London is ready for such a scheme.

Firstly, it's due to start in central London only - which means that it, like most of the other city schemes across the world, will be used mostly by tourists, rather than Londoners (who will still have their travelcards and therefore have no financial incentive to use velib) but it will be paid for by Londoners.

Secondly, are the roads in central London ready for a few thousand wobbly tourists who are coming to terms with cycling on the left? I don't cycle in central Lonond because I find it far too scary. I'm not ging up there until they have proper cycle lanes, with phsical barriers (as in a raised curb) between me and the lorries; so what's it going to be like for the tourists. We don't have the wide boulevards of Paris, in London (obviously). So, in addition to the bike scheme, more money needs to be spent on improving cycle lanes.

And lastly, although most of these schemes have ended up going out into the suburbs, wouldn't it have been better to start there? After all the majority of the very short journeys that are made by car now, and that we want to stop are in outer London, not inner London. Getting people out of their cars and onto a bike for a trip to the butchers on Lordship Lane will surely make a greater difference to people's quality of life?

So, none of these problems I have raised are insurmountable, and I am in principle in favour of a velib type scheme - however, if it is going to benefit all Londoners and not just be a bit of fancy window dressing then it needs to be better thought through.

More Broken promises, Boris?

If you live in south east London and rely on the overland train to get into central London you won't need telling how annoying and expensive not being able to use the Oystercard system is.

One of Boris' major promises was to just sort it out. Sort it out within the year! That means by now. But if you live in south east London, can you use your oystercard on the Train? No - neither can I!

In true Boris style (i.e. the bit where he thinks he can just waive a magic wand to get things done) he has failed to deliver on that promise! Thanks to Bridget for pointing out Caroline's work to raise this.

This stinks - not being able to us the Oyster card is expensive - especially for the most disadvantaged who don't need or can't afford to go and get a weekly travelcard.

Now it looks like it's slipping until 2010 - this is no good, no good at all! Come on Boris, just because I think you will, doesn't make it obligatory to be a rubbish Mayor who over promises and under achieves!!!!!!

Boris one year on...

‘It is a year since Boris Johnson was elected Mayor’ said the man on the phone from LBC.

‘Last year, in the run up to the Mayoral election you wrote a post titled ‘Why Boris Johnson is a really, really bad idea’, do you still hold the same opinion?’

‘Oh yes!!’ said I!

And so I’m going to be on Ken Livingstone’s LBC show on Saturday morning to discuss Boris’ first year. Also on is Dave Hill from the Guardian (v excited about meeting him, I love his blog) and I think Iain Dale, but maybe not, maybe another Conservative blogger.

Just the other day I was musing to myself, as I was digging out the couch grass from what will be strawberry bed on the allotment, that with any luck we are 25% of the way through Boris’ tenure as London Mayor.

I reckon, that means we’re about a year away from beginning to uncover some of the big mistakes he will have made in the last year.

Yes, I’m sorry to still be so down on someone, whom undoubtedly I’d be delighted to sit next to at dinner, but I’ve yet to see any evidence of executive competence.

Has it all been awful? Well no, I suppose in retrospect the illiberal banning of alcohol on the tube and buses has led to an improvement (although, I’m too old and too much of an early bird to go on night buses nowadays) and I was wrong about that.

Boris’ inexperience in running teams showed up early in the multi resignations that took place over the summer. He has shown a crass lack of judgment in warning his Tory colleagues of police activity in the Damien Green affair – or is it that he thinks the rules don’t apply to him?

There’s two other problematic signs in this first year of his Mayoralty.

Firstly, it seems to me that he’s not the Mayor for all Londoners; he’s the Mayor for affluent Londoners. Most of the cuts he made affect those living in less affluent areas of London but would make a great difference to their regeneration, such as the cross river tram which would link Peckham to Camden, the extention of the DLR to Dagenham and the Croydon tram link extension to the lovely, wonderful Crystal Palace.

But Kensington & Chelsea get the congestion charge removed. For sure, I was never a fan of the K&C charge as it seemed to me it was a largely residential area but you get the drift – if you come from a Tory voting borough then Boris is definitely your man!

The second is this dislike of scrutiny that he has. Dave Hill has done a great blog on this but it’s obvious to anyone who saw this behaviour at the Transport select committee will see that he thinks he is above criticism.

It is the behaviour of a petulant child and I have mucho empathy for his mother who must have had the patience of a saint throughout his childhood.

As Dave Hill says, we don’t have free ranging press conference any more but themed announcements meaning that Boris and his hench men (for they are largely men) get to control what is talked about.

But the thing about our London Mayoral system is that he has all the power and all we have, those of us who are not Boris Johnson, is the ability to scrutinise. And Boris won’t let us scrutinise him and that’s just undemocratic.

Still, with any luck only another three years to go...

Boris deserts East London

And turns his back on environmental forms of transport....

Well, that was inevitable, wasn't it?

Relieved as I am, as a Crystal Palace resident, not to have the East London Line Extension scrapped it seems that Boris have slashed swathes of budget off key transport infrastructure projects including, as listed on the BBC website:

£1.3bn cross-river tram plan which would have connected Peckham to Camden

£500m Thames Gateway Bridge scheme in east London

£750m extension of the Docklands Light Railway to Dagenham Dock in east London

£500m Oxford Street tram scheme

£170m Croydon Tramlink extension

Public space proposals for a number of areas including Parliament Square and the Victoria Embankment

Given that trams are amongst the greenest forms of transport that just shows that when you vote blue you certainly don't get green!!

And what are we getting instead?

Mucking around with bloody routemaster. If there was ever a waste of time and money and a dog whistle to those who think life was always better in the past then I don't know what is. Boris Watch has more on that point here.

I really feel for East London; Barking & Dagenham is in need of so much regeneration but it's just not going to happen without the proper transport infrastructure. And as for the Thames Gateway bridge - do you htink he's have dared to do that in West London?

Dave Hill has more details on the transport for London business plan here.

I told you he didn't have the experience: No 374

The word being used, repeatedly, by everyone over at Boriswatch is chaos. Boris' team at City Hall is in chaos following Tim Parker's resignation. Personally, I prefer inexperience and incompetence. although I agree that special mix of inexperience and incompetence that is Boris could be pretty chaotic.

On the other hand, maybe chaos is the most zippy, easy way of framing Boris' administration. Let's hope he doesn't embody it too much, eh?

Boris Johnson is without doubt an intelligent and educated man. But he's never managed a billion pound budget before and his people management skills are non existent.

So, I was right and all you lot that said he'd be fine are wrong. I really am thinking of renaming this blog Cassandra...I really am. FFS...this is London we're talking about and we have this man in charge just because he looks fun!

No change at all, I'm afraid Boris

Don't people like Brian Coleman make you sick?

Where on earth does he get off thinking he deserves to spend £8,000 worth of our money on taxis?

Ok, so the letter of the law hasn't been broken but surely spending this much on taxi, including over £600 in one day just shows contempt for the people of London?

A while back, I blogged that although I thought Boris would be one bigga mistake-a for London to make-a, I hoped that his term off office wasn't disastrous for London ('cos I just love London so much) and that things would get better. But my worst fears, and more, are coming true! already, just three months in!

One of the many, many reasons that I could never be a Tory is because of men like Brian Coleman; men who seem to have a sense of entitlement and seem to believe that they are so special that they should never even have to consider taking public transport or driving themselves. Men who see no difference between publicly paid expenses and their own money.

Although, I rather suspect that if he actually had to pay for the taxi's himself, out of his own salary, he would have been a little less excessive.

There should be a cap on expenses like this...and who bloody signed them off anyway?

Update: Have discovered, whilst perusing Recess Monkey, that it's not just Tory men who go around with a sense of entitlement to live off our taxes but Tory women; this is surely just one big Tory disease. See what happens when they start taking the country for granted again?

God forbid that they get into Government; I'm not sure that we can afford to support the lifestyles of many more of them!

The inevitable consequence of inexperience

Well, Boris Johnson may be, as Neil says, in danger of underming his own narrative but it seems that he's well on the way to delivering on the narrative that I set out for him before he was elected.

Which is, for those of you that need reminding, that someone without the experience of running a large organisation or mananging a budget or a team of people will not have the experience to know whether they have chosen the right people to shore up that lack of experience. So 'having good people around him' will never make up for the fact that he is a dilettante playing at being Mayor.

The resignations of first, James McGrath and now Ray Lewis just show that Boris is lacking in judgement when it comes to people. Mr Lewis' seeming inability to distinguish what as actually happened against what he would like to happen, in the way he claimed to be a magistrate when he wasn't, is a character flaw that shouldn't have been too hard to pick up.

Boris Johnson is now having to play with the grownups and it would see that for all his intellience he just doesn't have the experience to do it well.

Whither the bendy bus

Ok, Bendy Buses: Dave Hill has got me excited on this in his Comment is Free piece this afternoon and I, and as on all things Londonian, have a very strong opinion on them.

So, here goes:

Firstly, if you looked at all the things that needed money spent on them in London today can we all really say, hand on heart, that buses, not having more of them but just changing the style of them, is the tip top priority for the whole of London?

More important than housing, reducing crime, dragging the tube into the 21st century, ensuring that the rail companies take the oyster card, the Olympics (well, maybe they're more important than the Olympics), congestion, climate change, the Thames barrier, keeping young people occupied on something else than stabbing each other, the threat of bombs, the City, making the west end more pedestrian friendly etc, etc, etc?????

I would say this week, like 16 other weeks already this year, many Londoners will be wondering what we can do about the high rate of teenage knife crime. Will replacing bendy buses with a modern version of the routemaster help? No, not really. Having conductors could help in an indirect way, I suppose. But, you don't have to have a routemaster to have conductors and frankly, it might be better to put the money to funding the British Transport Police; just a thought.....

I find it offensive the Boris Johnson is wasting our money on something as frivolous as this. If he was going to start up some new bus routes and put the routemasters there, then that at least would have the redeeming feature of improving public transport in London. But this, this is just frivolous!

Secondly: OK so, I too liked the open platform. It was great fun and very good for shopping on Oxford Street because the bus never went to fast that you couldn't just step on at any point down the road. But that's about it. They were too small and poky, too hot in summer, a nightmare to get off if you had any sort of shopping or luggage. And do I need to mention the fact that wheelchair users and mothers with buggies couldn't use them?

Boris Johnson told us that he was going to represent all Londoners but replacing accessible buses with routemasters is the opposite of inclusive.

I remember not long after the routemaster was phased out watching a young mother with two kids, one of whom was severely disabled. She waited at the bus stop, got on the bus, sat down putting her son in the wheelchair in the space allocated to them and then after a 5 or 10 minute ride she got off the bus and carried on wherever she was going. That journey would have been impossible with the routemaster; her new found freedom (and let's face it the efficiency because she doesn't have to use taxi's so much now) was breathtaking!

Routemasters were only fun for some people and moving away from the inclusive city that we have become should be resisted.

Thirdly, for many, many years before they were finally taken out of service the routemaster like the bendy bus that followed it only really served central London and a few arterial routes. The majority of Londoners and London bus journeys don't even use them, particularly in the suburbs. So once again, a whole lot of fuss over the centre of London and the suburbs are marginalised. Which is pretty damn surprising as it was the suburbs wot won it for him....when, oh, when will we have a Mayor that is interested in all Londoners?

The mort time we spend discussing whither the bendy bus the less time Boris has to spend on the real problems that Londoners are dealing with every day not a made up problem like the demise of the routemaster

Living with Boris

Well, thankfully not literally but having had a very harrowing last few weeks, it has come to my notice that Boris really did get in.

And it’s like this: I was really against Boris getting in, not so much because he was a Tory as I don’t much like non nuLabour Ken but that I didn’t think he was really up to the job. However clever he is (and I do believe he’s clever) he lacks the experience to run an £11bn budget and my lovely city. And I’m not convinced by the idea that he will gather a group of knowledgeable people around him; he lacks the experience to know and recognise when someone is mucking it up.

Still, he’s in and I find my desire to make London the best city that it possibly can be, is greater than my distaste for this man. So, I’m not sitting back to watch him fail, with glee in my eyes. I am hoping that he doesn’t fail; I am hoping that he brings in good policies and improves this city. Because if I’m honest, I love this city more than I love party politics.

So, how is he doing?

The Drinking Ban: pointless and illiberal. It’s not people with open alcohol containers that create the problem, it’s people disturbing the peace and being violent. I don’t think that alcohol containers being open of not makes the slightest bit of difference. This is nuLabour gesture politics. I dislike it’s illiberalness but apart from that, I don’t think it’ll harm London, it just won’t help London. A wasted opportunity. The ‘riot’ will be neither here nor there in a few months.

The break up with Chavez: This I actually applaud. I haven’t given much thought to why Boris has done it; I suspect it has more to do with not subsidising bus fares than an ethical foreign policy for London (it’ll be easier to cut the subsidy later, without a fanfare). After all, the Tory just lurve the Saudi’s, don’t they? So, I’d be surprised if Boris was put off by the whiff of corruption that follows Chavez around. Still, I’m happy about it, because I don’t like having a deal with London giving Chavez, the man who shuts down TV stations that don’t agree with him, any airs of respectability.

The big bill for the transitions team: My eyebrow is only half raised. It is expensive, especially when you compare it to the permanent staff pay packet. But, but, if you look at the private sector incomes for these kind of people, especially if they’re working on a fee basis rather than salary, whilst it’s still pricey, it’s not so far removed from the market rate. It is, however, I fear down to the lack of experience that Boris Johnson has in actually running anything that he’s paying private sector market rate type prices. It’s all very well having an attitude of paying to get the best, when you yourself earn £250k for the part time job of penning a newspaper column, but there just isn’t the sort of money in the public sector when you can’t justify high costs with high profits. If he had more experience, he would know this. Instead he will just run out of money sooner and then have to run the place on a skeleton staff which will be no fun for them and no fun for us. Budget control, the lack of which Ken was rightly castigated for, was never going to be Boris’ strong point. I’m just trying to work out what is.

Routemaster Buses only an aspiration: Hahaha! Of course they are and they should not be his number one priority!

So, the verdict?

To be honest, he’s not had much time to ruin it yet and, veering back into party politics for a moment, my fears about the impact on a Tory revival have been realised. I wonder what those Lib Dems going around telling us how Boris was going to be the more liberal are feeling now, when the first thing he does is ban something?

Still, when my partner and I were walking across Trafalgar Square the other Sunday morning we looked at the Africa Day stage being set up and thought about how funding for cultural events such as this would be quietly dropped, just like funding for environmental schemes in the capital will no doubt be reduced. No big press conference, fanfare there. No doubt to pay the bills of his super duper transition team. It will be a decidedly different London. In fairness, I have castigated Ken Livingstone on live TV for being just a Trafalgar Square Mayor, but that was more for his focus on inner London boroughs at the expense of the suburbs, but I did enjoy the events that took place at Trafalgar Square.

One of my big interests in London though, is policing. And I am a big, big fan of community policing. I went to the commendation ceremony of my Safer Neighbourhood team the other day and wondered, along with a senior policeman whether funding for community policing would continue. We both hoped so. But whilst the number of police and PCSOs is important, as is parents and the wider communities responsibility for the behaviour of our children, one key factor in dealing with young people’s crime and unsafe streets is something for young people to do. My experience of living in a Tory borough is that whilst, they have done very well in clearing up graffiti, they seem to have made it their life’s work to reduce funding for young people’s facilities and activities. The link between bored and disillusioned young people and crime is clear; can Boris be the first Conservative, with the help of his Deputy Mayor Ray Lewis, to realise that it is better prevent young people from committing crime than just punish them when it’s all too late?

Waiting

So, it looks like the blogosphere is calling it for Boris. How very depressing! All I can say is that I'm glad I'm not Labour...because not only have they lost the country, it looks like they've lost London. Not just unfortunate but rather careless, wouldn't you say?

So, I'm here, at the Sky News studio dropped off a little early by the car and just trying to contemplate what a potential Tory resurgence will feel like, because make no mistake if Boris wins tonight like everybody thinks he will it is far more significant for the Tories than a Livingstone win would have been for Labour. The last time the Tories put Labour out of power was in 1979. I remember it well because it was also the day I lost my red mickey mouse watch.

Still, it could have been worse as we, yes, we the Lib Dems did a lot better than expected; as I write we've got 29 extra councillors and depending on who you ask we have maintained or increased our vote share. Not bad and probably quite irritating for the other two parties who would probably have wanted to squeeze us out of existence. Well, they didn't! Ha! And we've got back Sheffield!

Back on Sky.com News tonight...

I'm back on Sky.com News tonight with two different bloggers this time: Shane Greer and Jag Singh. We're going to be covering the local election results and the producers are hoping that the Mayor and London Assembly election results are going to be annouced whilst we're on air.

As I have one of the world's most expressive faces ever it will be really easy to tell what I think before I get close to opening my mouth: relief, joy or absolute horror!

I've been trying to pull myself together from a feeling of impending doom for London and write a post, but I'm struggling. It's not just the thought of Boris in charge, it's all those really smug Tories out and about again. Gah!

The Tories rated Brian above Boris as well

Just thought I'd bring this little article to your attention: apparently the Tories would have chosen the excellent Brian Paddick as their Mayoral Candidate as well.

"Mr Paddick, a former senior Metropolitan Police officer, sent David Cameron an email asking if speculation that the Tories wanted him to be their man was true. The Tory leader quickly dispatched Francis Maude, a Shadow Cabinet member, for talks."They promised me the Earth, all the money I could spend and professional back-up," said Mr Pad dick"

Just one little problem he was already a Liberal Democrat! Ha!

This goes to prove that the Tories were desperate when they picked Boris and our now playing a very cynical game of celebrity politics with our £11billion London budget. No, they're very far from being the party that you would trust with you're money.

So, if you want a really good first choice candidate running London then place Brian as your first preference tomorrow.

Don't forget to vote for Lib Dems in the London Assembly election to and keep the BNP out.

Should Brian Paddick express his second preference?

There are cries all over the place for Brian Paddick to come out and name his second preference and recommend the way all good thinking Lib Dem voters should vote. In fact, it has been claimed that it our duty and that our London MPs and Brian are failing in that duty if they do not recommend a second preference to us Lib Dem activists, members and voters. After all Sian Berry has done it for Ken and the BNP have come out for Boris.

Ha! Shows how much they know about the Liberal Democrats! The clue is in the name; we are a democratic party we don’t do top down dictates! Blimey, I can just imagine now the barney if one of our MPs came out for Ken or for Boris. It is fair to say that there are those like myself who cannot countenance Boris the Mayor who will therefore hold their nose and vote for Ken. There are those who feel Boris is the more liberal and will go for him (obviously ignoring the fact that his lack of experience will give him precious opportunity to act on any of this perceived liberalism – but frankly that’s their prerogative). And there have been plenty of people who have decided that they cannot bring themselves to vote for either and won’t use their preference; personally I feel that is a bit of a cop out.

For me it is very disappointing that my second preference places me between a rock and a hard place and I am having to go for the least worse rather than a second best; but there you go. But I am not the candidate.

I don’t think Brian should be expressing a second preference precisely because he is the candidate. Apart form the fact (see above) that it wouldn’t work as Liberal Democrats don’t like being told what to do, anti-establishment peeps that we are, it would also blow any hopes that Brian would have of pulling the discussion away from the Ken & Boris show and over to the very sensible things that he and the Lib Dems are saying about what London needs.

Sian Berry made a tactical error when she went into a pact with Ken; she made her and her message an irrelevance. I think the Greens will lose votes not only for the mayoralty but in the London Assembly as well.

This race has been very much one of personalities and being from the third party is a pretty poor place to start. To express a preference would be give up on any chance to make a difference and make the race even more of the two horse race that the media wants it to be.

Last London Mayoral Hustings on Sky TV tonight

This is just a reminder that the last and largest hustings for London Mayor the London Debate Unplugged will be broadcast by Sky News on Monday evening. It will of course include the three front runners: Ken, Boris and our very own Brian Paddick.

amazingly, I have been asked by Sky to take part in their programme along with Iain Dale and Alex Hilton aka Recess Monkey to provide comment and 'insight' into the proceedings. The first part of the programme at 7.30pm will take part both on line and be broadcast on Sky News, then the debate will start and we'll be online during the add breaks to round up what's been going on. Then for an hour after the debate finishes there'll be a big discussion programme, online, where the three 'experts' will be joined by both members of the various campaign teams and the audience.

See you there!!!

London Debate Unplugged on Sky News

The last and largest hustings for London Mayor the London Debate Unplugged will be broadcast by Sky News on Monday evening. It will of course include the three front runners: Ken, Boris and our very own Brian Paddick.

Much more importantly though, I will be taking part in the 'unplugged' part of the programme, as part of a panel of expert bloggers. I will be joined by Iain Dale and Alex Hilton aka Recess Monkey. The first part of the programme at 7.30pm will take part both on line and be broadcast on Sky News, then the debate will start and we'll be online during the add breaks to give our insight. Then for an hour after the debate finishes there'll be a big discussion programme, online, where the three 'experts' will be joined by both members of the various campaign teams and the audience.

I'm off to town this afternoon to buy a new outfit; as I have discovered in the last 24 hours that I have nothing suitable to wear for a trip to Sky News. Honest, it's not an excuse for a shop at all.

In response to Jeremy's call to sacrifice London...aaargh!!!

Jeremy Hargreaves in his blog suggests that 2 years of Boris in charge of London will be enough to scare the country in the general election off the Tories forever; unfortunately the comments aren’t working on his blog so I can’t tell him what I think of that idea! So, I’m going to have to post my response here:

So, Jeremy, the thing is, I don't think Boris Johnson would act as a vaccination.

One of the things about Boris is that he has a distinct 'Boris' brand which is separate from the Conservatives. The Tories knew this when they chose him; it's similar to Ken's brand which is distinct from Labour.

This distinct brand means that Boris is far more attractive to Londoners than the Tories would be.

A Boris win would allow the Tories to capitalise on that heading to the General election, though.

I think Boris will screw up London because he is incompetent and inexperienced; but I’m not sure that this will come through in the 2 years between a Boris win in London in 2008 and a General election in 2010, firstly, because Boris will have a honeymoon period and, secondly, because it normally takes a couple of years for things to unravel.

In the event that he has no honeymoon period and his incompetence is shown up early enough to impact the General Election the Tories will be in a good position to distance themselves from him. Boris isn’t using the Tory brand to get into power and therefore the Tory brand will not be so contaminated by his failure as you may hope.

A win for Ken; well I don’t think that’s going to have any impact on Labour’s electoral chances.

Another reason why encouraging Boris Johnson is a really, really bad idea...

Sorry to keep on about this but I’m hoping this little comment from Iain Dale’s blog (not him but one of his commenters, Danvers Baillieu)shines some light on why giving any vote for Boris is still a really, really bad idea; even if the fact that he’s incompetent, pointed out yesterday, doesn’t persuade you:

"I have just spent an hour or so handing out "Back Boris" oyster card holders outside Bank tube station. In all my years of campaigning, I have never seen such a positive response for a candidate. The card holders flew out of my (and the other volunteers') hands so fast we had to call to HQ for additional supplies. I realise that the centre of the City is not exactly enemy territory for Boris, but I still got the strong feeling that he is a popular front runner. After 11 years in the political wilderness, on 1 May Boris will show that the Conservatives are back."

Do you see that bit at the end there? The bit about the Conservatives being back? So, that’s the other really, really horrific thing about giving your second preference vote (or God forbid, your first; not that I’m religious, but you might be) to Boris Johnson.

Do we really want to give the Tories this momentum?

I’m pretty sure that the Tories know he’s an incompetent too. They’re just happy to let his media persona do some work for them for once and sacrifice London so that they can build up momentum for the General Election. After all, there’ll be plenty of them ready to pull his puppet strings. And to those (thankfully now receding proportionately in the Lib Dem Voice poll) who think it might be a jolly wheeze to place your second vote for Boris, and then just think about what a boost this would give the Tories.

If the Tories get a comfortable majority in a General Election off the back of a win in London, not only could some of that majority be at the expense of Lib Dem MPs, but we can say bye-bye to electoral reform any time in the near future.

No votes are wasted, even second ones. I know that the best vote is a vote for Brian Paddick but it seems we still have a FPTP mentality; the second vote is still there to be used and not ignored or frittered away in a fit of hubris.

My only hope is that, given that Mr Baillieu was giving out the oyster card holders at Bank, many of the workers were commuters living outside of London or that they didn’t know who was on the oyster card holder and were just happy to get a new one. Personally, I think the oyster card holder from Mulberry is far more chic!

Why Boris Johnson is a really, really bad idea.

Boris Johnson terrifies me. Boris Johnson terrifies me because if he gets into power he will ruin our fantastic City.

So, it is with horror and disbelief that I see the polls that put Boris ahead and even on Lib Dem Voice so many people are putting Boris as their second preference; although perhaps they’re the ones that don’t actually live in London and so won’t have to live with so many of the consequences!

For sure, there is much to be done; our roads are still too congested, our public transport too expensive and inefficiently run, people are afraid of crime and we have teenagers killing each other with knives and guns; but it is still one of the best cities in the world to live in. I am so, so proud of being a Londoner and I reckon we knock the socks off all our great city rivals such as Paris, Berlin and New York.

We need a Mayor who is capable, who has a passion not just for power but running things and changing them where they have to be changed.

Nothing, nothing I have so far seen, in this man Boris Johnson, gives me any indication that he could do anything more than make a joke out of the job. No, really; because unless presenting ‘Have I got news for you?’ is the qualification required to run the best capital city in the world, as I’ve not seen him do anything else!

And he proved this on Newsnight, last night, as Lynne Featherstone so adroitly points out. Boris once more showed us that this is just an exercise in vanity for him; that he is so much more interested in just being someone than doing anything. Lynne points out:

“Boris was appalling - and Paxman nailed him on his waffle approach by asking him for a figure for something he was proposing re-replacing bendy buses. Boris was baffled. Boris was bamboozled. But Boris didn't answer the question. Boris was exposed as not knowing a thing really about bus costs.”

And this is the thing: if you are capable, if you are experienced at actually running things and you are really interested in something then understanding the costs of what you wanted to do is easy. It trips off your tongue; you have rehearsed all the arguments in favour of something because you have rehearsed them with yourself. You have thought it through.

I am, in my professional life a Projects & Programme Manager. I am responsible for spending millions pounds of my clients’ money and (obviously) ensuring that they either save as much or are able to bring in much, much more extra revenue as a result of the changes that I and my teams will make in their business and organisations. I can tell you right now, how much money I have spent, how much money I am going to spend, how much I should have spent and how much the extra thing that the MD asked us to do actually cost. I know how much money we’re going to save or earn, what that relies on, why it might not happen. I know all that stuff. Off by heart, without looking. If you woke me up at three in the morning and I was still half asleep I’d probably be able to give you that information before I could tell you my name. Or your name*.

I know, with passion, what the most important issues are, what the risks are and why we’re doing what we’re doing. Of course I do; for somebody charging what I do, you would expect no less. Indeed, if you wanted to employ someone for the job of spending millions of pounds on behalf of your organisation you’d probably look for a CV that proved they had done that sort of thing before, with some evidence of successful outcome.

Well, step forward Brian Paddick (tick), who has managed millions of pounds worth of policing and been so successful in Lambeth that when he left there was a grass roots campaign to bring him back – he made a difference, a positive difference. When asked about dealing with gun crime last night he was passionate and fluent in his response.

And even, though I have to hold my nose as I say this, step forward Ken Livingstone (tick). I don’t like Ken, I don’t like the company he keeps, the way he wastes money, the permanent self promotion that he undertakes and the dodgy deals and cronies that he keeps in work. But I have to concede that, although he has usually nicked the ideas of the Lib Dem Group at GLA, he can at least implement change and run a city. Not as well as I would like, but he has not been the disaster I thought he would be eight years ago (there, I can stop holding my breath now).

But Boris Johnson? Nothing, nada…no experience and, it looks pretty clear to me, no interest in and passion for running or doing anything. Is the mayoralty a Tory compensation prize for a man with the delusion that he could’ve have been something? You see, I don’t think Boris is stupid; I’m sure the man is very clever, writes a good column and even I concede that he can be amusing on telly; but he does not have the competence to be the Mayor of London. Frankly I wouldn’t employ Boris to answer the bleeding phone in my company, let alone run the bloody thing.

And so, I just do not understand why so many people would have Boris as their first or second choice on May 1^st.

If you care anything about London and the people who live and work in it, you will not put a cross anywhere near the name of Boris Johnson. Put your first choice for Brian Paddick, he is undoubtedly the best candidate; but whatever else you do, don’t let Boris Johnson ruin our beautiful, wonderful, vibrant city!

*Although, to be fair, if you woke me up to ask me that sort of stuff at three in the morning, you may no longer need a name as I may be tempted to commit some sort of ‘cide’ on you.