Hold the front page: Boris Johnson more right-wing than Steve Norris
4:38pm
“Boris Johnson is by far the most right wing candidate ever to be presented by a major party for Mayor of London.”
This is how the Compass dossier on Boris starts. But the sentence is actually fairly meaningless as there have only been two elections for Mayor of London and the Tories fielded the same candidate in both of them. So what the Compass report is actually saying is that Boris is more right-wing than Steve Norris; that hardly marks one out as the political love child of Ann Coulter and Genghis Khan. You could equally happily say that “Ken Livingstone is by far the most left wing candidate ever to be presented by a major party for Mayor of London.” Indeed, that is far more of an achievement as it puts him to the left of Frank Dobson who is considerably more left-wing than Norris is right-wing. 
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Comments
Alex, London
August 21st, 2007 4:59pmSo what? Not sure I understand what Compass' point is. Is being branded 'right wing' supposed to be a badge of dishonour?
Anthony C
August 21st, 2007 5:48pmThis may be analogous to the situation with the introduction of Newsnight guests, where if you work at a left-wing think tank you work at a "think tank" and if you work at a right-wing think tank you work at a "right-wing think tank".
nadders
August 21st, 2007 5:52pmHaving read the report, it looks like a very long list of reasons to vote for Boris.
Lee Jakeman
August 21st, 2007 10:11pmAllow me to translate. Right Wing = Evil. Left Wing = Good. Get it? I don't .....
Jeffrey
August 23rd, 2007 1:53amLet's have Norris, not that clown Boris.