Boris Johnson as Mayor - what are the implications for London's development?

[DarJoLe]

Ken Livingstone: 'This isn't a race to elect a chat-show host'
Decca Aitkenhead
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 April 2012 20.00 BST

He is a lifelong champion of London's poor and dispossessed. So, with a week to go before the mayoral election, why is he still struggling to get his message across against a millionaire old Etonian?

The last time I met Ken Livingstone we had a bit of a row about electoral strategy. He told me that voters respect him because he speaks his mind and refuses to play the media game of placating the rightwing press. I suggested that if he really wants to help Londoners, he owes it to them to watch his words very carefully – because he knows full well they'll be twisted into gaffes if he gives the media half a chance. He said I was capitulating to the politics of cynical spin and soundbites. I said he was being dangerously stubborn.

That was back last October. By the time we met again last week, coverage of the mayoral campaign was devoted almost exclusively to his own goals, Boris Johnson was six points ahead in the polls, and – like many people – I blamed Livingstone. How could a millionaire old Etonian, who considers a £250,000 salary "chickenfeed", and belongs to a party squeezing the poorest whilst cutting tax for the richest, be romping towards a second term? How had Livingstone ended up looking like the greedy, untrustworthy, prejudiced one? After all the needless gaffes of recent weeks, I thought, he's got some explaining to do.

I find the candidate sitting with Cocoa, his labrador, outside a west-London cafe in the sunshine, smiling broadly and looking more serene than I think I would after the past month's media onslaught. Campaign aides with mobile phones soldered to their ears flurry about, and passers-by stop to fuss over Cocoa until Livingstone's wife arrives to take her for a walk. The heavy gloom of exhaustion which hung over Livingstone's campaign last time round has certainly vanished – as has, it must be said, the sour-tempered belligerence. As we run through all his recent difficulties, I'm braced for him to get snappy and defensive – but the irritability never comes.

Why did he say that Jewish Londoners were too rich to vote for him? "I didn't say that. Someone posed the question to me, 'Why don't more Jewish people vote for you?' I started to say, 'No group votes as a whole. The main determining factor in how everybody votes – the overwhelming majority – is income levels.' Psephology," he points out mildly, "isn't a hate crime." But lots of people vote against economic self-interest – including him. "Yes, there are lots of individual exceptions," he agrees. "But no one has ever done a study about voting intention without ascertaining that the biggest determining factor is your income and your wealth."

This isn't the first time he's upset Jewish Londoners, however, and a recent Times editorial speculated that what might look like antisemitism could in fact be a tactic to court Muslim voters, who outnumber Jewish voters by four times in London. "If I was courting the Muslim vote," Livingstone reasons patiently, "I wouldn't have put establishing the partnership ceremony at the forefront of my first term, would I? I go all around London advocating lesbian and gay rights."

That's true, but only makes his infamous remark that the Tory party is now "riddled" with gay people all the more maddening. It's obvious he used the term ironically, mocking the party's traditional homophobes who would use the word to denote disgust. "I was making the point that not a single Tory MP spoke out in support when I introduced partnership ceremonies. But they only quoted half the sentence. Where's the bit that says: 'Isn't it wonderful?' I mean, it does actually change the context slightly." But why risk a joke that could translate into print so disastrously that no one would laugh? Livingstone used to answer questions like that with a rather pompous: "I refuse not to have a sense of humour." Today he just grins and spreads his hands. "OK, let Boris do what he does best – which is telling jokes – and let me do what I do best, which is running things."

Tears proved just as problematic for Livingstone as laughter, though, when a lot of people wondered why he wept watching an election broadcast by an advertising agency. "First off, we went out on the street and asked people if they were voting for me, and if so would they like to say a line in this advert?" he explains. "Those lines were scripted, and I'd seen them. What I didn't know they'd done was, they then asked people: What's the message you've got for Ken? The unscripted bit at the end was when they said to me: You gotta win, Ken. And that was very moving. I'm sorry, but it was."

The ding-dong over Livingstone's tax affairs damaged him more than all of the above put together, making this the first election I can recall where you need an accountant to work out what's going on – but even the accountants can't seem to agree. Livingstone and I go round and round the debate, but the logic his argument boils down to is ultimately quite simple. "There's nothing in there that is illegitimate, or by now the tax office would have done something about it."

Continued http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...chat-show-host

[Octoman]

Ken remains the only mayoral candidate refusing to release his tax details despite promising to do so over two weeks ago. Note that Boris released his full set of accounts showing that he in no way benefited from any special company arrangements.

Ken has so far only released heavily redacted extracts pulled together by his personal adviser

Ken Livingstone promises full tax details 'shortly'


On Tuesday night Ken promised once again to publish a full set of accounts for his famous personal company, Silveta, which enables him to pay corporation tax at 20% on his massive earnings rather than income tax of up to 50%, and avoid National Insurance altogether.

Asked at a campaign event: “Will you give an understaking to publish a set of your tax affairs and accounts certified by your accountant?” he replied: “I’m happy to [go] back and get my accountant to certify [my tax figures] – we got them from my accountant, I’m happy to do that.”

He didn’t get the figures he published from his accountant, of course – unlike every other candidate. They were knocked up by one of his advisers, Mark Watts – one of the famous “cronies” who shared a £1.6 million payoff from taxpayers after Ken’s City Hall. Hope you didn't channel that through a personal company, Mark!

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/an...ounts-shortly/

[wjfox]

I'll be voting for Jenny Jones (Green Party).

[thedurringtondoctor]

Is any of this even remotely interesting?

[Octoman]

For someone who is interested in politics, yes

It has about 5% of the interest and importance of the national political scene but it is an interesting sideshow because of the two main protagonists.

[thedurringtondoctor]

Originally Posted by Octoman

For someone who is interested in politics, yes

It has about 5% of the interest and importance of the national political scene but it is an interesting sideshow because of the two main protagonists.

Agreed but this thread is entitled Boris Johnson as Mayor -what are the implications for London's development.
Shouldn't we be discussing Boris's love of all things modern and Ken's love affair with the Gurkhin or something???

[Nightjar]

Originally Posted by thedurringtondoctor

Is any of this even remotely interesting?

Well, judging by your stellar contribution to SSC over the last ten months or so, you're clearly an expert in what "interesting" debate is constituted of, so why don't you elucidate us.


PS - it's spelt "Gherkin".

[thedurringtondoctor]

Originally Posted by Nightjar

Well, judging by your stellar contribution to SSC over the last ten months or so, you're clearly an expert in what "interesting" debate is constituted of, so why don't you elucidate us.


PS - it's spelt "Gherkin".

Thank you for being a condescending prick.

[ill tonkso]

Originally Posted by thedurringtondoctor

Agreed but this thread is entitled Boris Johnson as Mayor -what are the implications for London's development.
Shouldn't we be discussing Boris's love of all things modern and Ken's love affair with the Gurkhin or something???

Not really, the debate has changed over the 4 years this thread has existed. It has adapted to the current political situation.

[thedurringtondoctor]

Originally Posted by ill tonkso

Not really, the debate has changed over the 4 years this thread has existed. It has adapted to the current political situation.

OK should we change the title then? This is the first time I have looked at it and was confused
By the way, I emigrated from London 5 years ago and rarely return. Who is the candidate most well disposed towards tall or modern buidlings?

[Octoman]

Ken was the most pro-skyscraper. He actively pushed for them.

Boris haw not been the anti tall zeolot that some feared and has mainly been fairly sanguine about tall buildings but neither has he pushed for more talls. His siteline framework ammendments make the viewing corridoor restrictions tougher.

I think that is kind of irrelevant now. 20 or so story buildings are regular proposals now and with the completion of the latest batch of skyscrapers it will be hard to deny further really tall buildings. The genie is out of the bottle.


The most important thing about this election is that if Boris is elected Londoners will have more money.

[DarJoLe]

Originally Posted by Octoman

I think that is kind of irrelevant now. 20 or so story buildings are regular proposals now and with the completion of the latest batch of skyscrapers it will be hard to deny further really tall buildings. The genie is out of the bottle.

Is that why 5 Broadgate, Walbrook Square, the whole of the Aldgate area, Elephant & Castle and Waterloo are all now being proposed as lacklustre, stumpy designs? Boris's meddling has restricted whole swathes of the city from building tall, and created a flat, dull roofline around St Pauls to the City cluster, restricted growth around Elephant & Castle and Waterloo and is in danger of creating a flat skyline around Vauxhall. The shortage of housing is city-wide disgrace with people now being shipped out of London because of a lack of housing and Boris is simply stifling this by cutting heights of buildings turning back the clock.

Talk to people who actually deal with these things on a daily basis - they'll tell you Boris has been an absolute disaster when it comes to planning London's future - no sense of vision, overall coherency nor attention to detail.

Originally Posted by Octoman

The most important thing about this election is that if Boris is elected Londoners will have more money.

Pennies! Boris's transport hikes wipe out any of his cost cutting savings. His cuts are adding to the woes the nation is in. The only people who will benefit from Boris are the people who caused this crisis in the first place.

[Octoman]

Boris has pledged to cut his share of tax. He has removed the WEZ and scrapped the gas guzzler charge. This year was the only year EVER that the mayor has cut tax since the job was created.

Good work

[DarJoLe]

Originally Posted by Octoman

He has removed the WEZ and scrapped the gas guzzler charge.

This is not a positive!

[NCT]

Originally Posted by Octoman

He has removed the WEZ and scrapped the gas guzzler charge. Good work

Really Octo, how many people of what kind of people did these measures benefit, and what are the consequences for everyone else who now have to put up with more congestion, pollution and lack of public resources?

[Octoman]

Aah NCT you are of course falliing into a bit of a mind trap.

Freeing people up is of course always the best course of action.

[Officer Dibble]

Hm. I'm in favour of cutting tax overall, and I agree in principle that "freeing people up" is a good thing.

But no-one feels all that free when they're stuck in stationary traffic. And in a place like London, the supply of road space can't simply be increased to meet demand. So I happen to believe road-pricing is a good type of tax. Nudging people to drive smaller and less polluting vehicles seems in everyone's interest too.

Boris deserves credit for freezing the GLA part of council tax in London, and he'd deserve even more credit if he actually cut it - but I think he was wrong to scrap the WEZ and the gas guzzler thingy, whatever it was called.

Originally Posted by DarJoLe

Boris's meddling has restricted whole swathes of the city from building tall, and created a flat, dull roofline around St Pauls to the City cluster, restricted growth around Elephant & Castle and Waterloo and is in danger of creating a flat skyline around Vauxhall.

I agree with most of that - but the area around St Paul's has been developing a flat, dull roofline for decades, ever since Prince Charles went on his 'Vision of Britain' kick. You can't really pin that one on Boris.

Originally Posted by wjfox

I'll be voting for Jenny Jones (Green Party).

I would too, this time, if I were there.

[DarJoLe]

Tonight's ES.



And then this happens.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-17893035

[Nightjar]

Oh, he does make me laugh.

[hakkasan]

Originally Posted by wjfox

I'll be voting for Jenny Jones (Green Party).

Speaking to the BBC's Daily Politics, Jenny Jones said London City Airport should be closed and replaced with "something useful" such as housing or allotments.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17777000