Boris puts on a performance for the 1922 Committee
James Forsyth 6:34pm
Boris Johnson was very well behaved this evening when he appeared before the 1922
Committee of Tory MPs. He stayed off the topics of Europe and tax and instead confined his remarks to London, saying that he wanted the capital to be an example of ‘cost-cutting, one nation
Conservatism’. Those MPs inside the room say the performance was classic Boris, as one put it ‘he left no erogenous zone unstroked’.
Afterwards, Mark Reckless, a north Kent MP, asked the Mayor a sceptical question about his plan for a new airport in Kent. In the questions, I understand that Boris also took the chance to express
his support for Rebecca Harris’s daylight saving times bill.
Interestingly, the turn-out for Boris was decent but not massive. One MP who did a rough head count told me that he thought there were about 80 MPs there.
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exile on euro street
January 18th, 2012 7:16pm Report this commentDoes this post say anything other than that a usually entertaining speaker played safe to a small audience, but I don't really know what he said?
chinasyndrome
January 18th, 2012 8:17pm Report this commentPrime minister in waiting...chance would be a fine thing?
Heartless C.
January 18th, 2012 8:30pm Report this commentAnything that brings Boris closer to, or into, Parliament, preferably at the Head of his Party is welcome!
ANYTHING to upset the cosy assumptions and status quo of this (mostly) supine bunch of yes-persons and, - ultimately, - OUT of the EUSSR.
telemachus'
January 18th, 2012 8:40pm Report this commentIf Boris reinfuses One Nation Consevatism to the revanchist Downing Street Duo he will have all our votes to take the Tories forward when the Lib Dems are wiped out in 2015
mattghg
January 18th, 2012 11:29pm Report this commentYaaaaawwwwwnnnnn
PayDirt
January 19th, 2012 8:46am Report this commentSo the Sheriff of Nottingham says he's all for cost-cutting. What bollocks. The idiot Mayor has just erected signs on every street corner around his domain saying LEZ, pay £100 to pass through (or buy a new van). The chief Robber Baron is at it again, this time taxing the ordinary folk to death with stupid propaganda about vehicle emissions. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for less smoke in the city, but tax the ruddy cars not workingmen's vehicles and use proper smoke tests, and less of King John's CCTV around the place. What a One Nation conservative goon, Mr Boris. When the revolution comes, the Robber Barons will meet their comeuppance. Fair England is fair no more. Let the scales fall from your eyes, what Boris says and what he does are two different things. Boris will be among the first to be dismembered and thrown into the Thames. It is that bad. Roll back the oppressive State, brothers, crush the tiny minority who lord it over you. Left and right join together to return to commonsense, to live without fear of taxes, unfair laws and two-faced politicians. Where is the fight? Have you become a nation of sheep, led into a false consumer paradise of virtual money? Bread and circuses, cost-cutting and OneNation tories will not stop the revolution, it is coming. Riots in Croydon, restless Scots, students on the streets, disaffected taxpayers. You have not seen much yet, but when this lot comes falling down, Boris’s nightmare will have arrived.
Nicholas
January 19th, 2012 9:02am Report this commenttelemachus' your repetitively inappropriate use of 'revanchist' and 'revanchism' is as boring as Fatso's irrelevant and dog-whistle use of 'dog-boiling'.
Learn what 'revanchism' actually means before you use it. Or better still break from your socialist tradition of hijacking language to create emotive codewords and use plain English.
EC
January 19th, 2012 9:57am Report this commentNicholas @9:02am,
RE: Leftoid blather etc. Alas, telemachus', the Stalin enthusiast, is evidently beyond your help.
As the very witty Gerard Vanderleun over at American Digest once put it, "It is the kind of a mind that can only be altered, as Stalin knew, by the full Beria."
Axstane
January 19th, 2012 10:35am Report this commentPayDirt
Emotive rubbish from you. The Low Emissions Zone was introduced by Livingstone [as was Congestion Charging].
That was in April 2008 and so vehicle users had almost 4 years to prepare.
I am old enough to remember trying to find my way through a London pea-souper so some of us do appreciate clean air.
commentator
January 19th, 2012 12:50pm Report this commentA pretty ridiculous comment by Axstane suggesting that all that stands between us and the pea super fogs of the fifties (brought on mainly by burning coal) is Livingstone's sub-Marxist crusade against drivers.
PayDirt
January 19th, 2012 1:44pm Report this commentAxstane old bean I think you may have fallen for the propaganda that our wonderful caring leaders are intent on cleaning up our environment. If they really believed killer diesel fumes they would impose restrictions on ALL diesel vehicles in the city, for example via stricter MOT smoke test (no such test has been made on my vehicle). And four years warning, well the SS may have given 4 months for all Undesirables to quit the occupied territory, so I suppose we should be grateful for a full 4 years notice. As Freud said on leaving Vienna in 1938, the SS are highly recommended. As for Boris, he has not stopped this van ban, he has actually promoted it. It will add to business costs, not to Boris’s but to ordinary people living in the London suburbs who want jobs done.
Marcher Baron
January 19th, 2012 6:03pm Report this commentI'm with PayDirt on this one. The LEZ is inconsistent. Cars are exempt, no matter how old or polluting. Probably because owners of large vehicles, being fewer in number, are seen as a softer target - my campervan, despite meeting MoT emissions tests, will fall foul of it, so there is no way I'll be going anywhere near London on my holidays. I'll be spending my money in the south-west instead. The last thing I'll do is spend a fortune to get my 'van upgraded to meet the EU emissions criteria (plus the necessary paperwork hassle) or pay yet more tax to use the roads I already fund with my VED, fuel taxes and insurance tax! Consider this; a 2-horse horsebox is subject to the LEZ, but a Landrover towing a 2-horse trailer isn't. Illogical or what?
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