Just in case you haven’t noticed, my campaign website has a new look, including a countdown clock that shows it is less than a year to the mayoral election in London.
We hope it will concentrate minds on the imminence of the London elections. In the capital Boris Johnson was a trailblazer for the Tories, arguing that no Whitehall department had moved so far and so fast to make cuts. The London election will be Londoners’ first chance to send a message to the Tory-led Government, mid-term, over soaring fares, police cuts, higher fees and VAT, cuts to council grants, London Ambulance Service job losses and NHS reorganisation.
At present, much of the dynamic of the debate in the media is about the Liberal Democrats. They have become a human shield for the Tories. You only have to watch television debates where the Tory representative sits back and lets the Lib Dem take the hit to see how much this helps the Conservative party.
There are signs the Lib Dems may have decided to be cooler in their relations with the Tories in Whitehall – but it seems they have gone into deep freeze with the Tory administration in City Hall.
Boris Johnson has relied on two strategies to get him through to next year’s elections unscathed. One is to blame someone else when something goes wrong. The other is to distance himself a little from the Government to avoid collateral damage from his own policies.
That has blown up in his face this week, with Lib Dem ministers laying into the Mayor over his effort to blame the Government for the tube strikes.
They are right to do so. London is seeing rising strikes and a degeneration of industrial relations on the network.
Sources close to Vince Cable told the London Evening Standard that Johnson should have been trying to meet the unions before seeking legislation to curb strikes. Employment relations minister Ed Davey said this week that Johnson should stop asking the Government to solve the problem of industrial unrest on the tube when he has failed to meet tube union leaders for talks for two years.
Davey said this week that: “Boris Johnson should have got off his backside” and met tube unions, saying “Boris is trying to pass the buck when actually the buck stops with City Hall.” Not so much “Back Boris” as “Backside Boris”.
London offers the chance to focus on the Tories, not least because London has a Tory incumbent. Removing the Mayor of London would be a powerful message to David Cameron, one that would make him think carefully about whether he can proceed with the naked Thatcherism that hurts so many people, not only in London but across the country.
New figures show the true blue character of London government. An analysis of Boris Johnson’s official diary has revealed he continues to hold more meetings with bankers and the financial services industry than with the Metropolitan Police, public meetings with Londoners or press conferences. According to the Mayor’s official diary, between May 2008 and March 2011, Boris Johnson has held 86 meetings with bankers and the financial services industry but 48 meetings with the Metropolitan Police; 64 meetings with Government ministers; 15 public meetings with Londoners; and just five press conferences. But there is one area that Boris Johnson gives even more weight to than bankers – cutting ribbons. He has held 124 photo-opportunities in that time.
As Ealing North Labour MP Steve Pound says, it’s clear from Boris Johnson’s official public diary that he is a Mayor for the Square Mile, not a Mayor for London. Join our campaign to change that and get a fairer London by visiting www.kenlivingstone.com
