It’s customary that the first 100 days of a new administration are relatively opposition-free for the new team to settle in and start the serious work. Boris’ 100 days honeymoon have shrunk to 60 due to his own incompetence. During the campaign he managed to change his popular image of a witty but not very effective politician to that of a dynamic and relatively serious candidate to be London Mayor, he adopted the new Tory brand. He ousted the pretty succesful Ken Livingstone on the ‘too long in power’ card and by presenting a relatively innovative set of proposals in his electoral manifesto. Like Cameron’s ‘Britain to be’ Boris’ London was to be safer, cheaper and overall a more efficient place than under Labour. This turned out to be wrong.
In 60 days Johnson has managed to have his closest advisor and Deputy Mayor forced to resign. The tragic part of this is that Deputy Mayor Ray Lewis could have been a great asset for London. It was Johnson’s decission to have an early PR victory, without properly vetting Lewis, what forced his resignation. Moreover, as Jenny Jones writes in today’s Grauniad, the Mayor’s questioning of the congestion charge means that Londoners relative isolation from the fuel crisis due to the higher use of public transport could end. But that’s not all, as I’ve written in this blog before he’s scrapping the oil deal with Venezuela that provided cheaper bus fares without a very good explanation for it, besides ideology maybe?. And this past Friday he announced that the return to the Routemaster bus, one of his campaign pledges, won’t start until 2012, when the next elections are to be held and in the middle of the transport mayhem that the Olympics will be, if that wasn’t enough Deutsche Bank has warned that the switch will produce a 11% rise on transport fares for Londoners. And crime, the central theme of his candidacy, is still on the raise without any visible eagerness from Johnson’s part to act on the situation, besides the populist but not very effective ‘no drinking on the tube’.
A lot of Londoners disliked Ken and fell for Boris’ siren singing straight out of the new Cameron handbook. Some are already missing Livingstone and he’s certainly still sought by the media for his views on the city’s current affairs. As I’ve said before keep an eye on Boris’ London to get a preview of a potential Cameron’s Britain. Boris like Cameron so far has been all words and no action and like Cameron he’s already had his share of ‘sleaze’ related scandals.
