The only tax-cutting Tory in town

25 April 2009

Ross Clark says that we mustn’t underestimate Boris’s greatest achievement: to have frozen the GLA precept without affecting services is a triumph

It is hard to remember the horrors of the London inherited by new Mayor Boris Johnson a year ago. It was a city gridlocked with traffic, with unaffordable housing, and where you couldn’t get a table in a decent restaurant without booking six months in advance. Now, the roads run freely, property is much cheaper and a seat for this evening at London’s finest restaurants is only a phone call away.

Admittedly, these improvements are less the work of the Mayor than a consolation for the deepest recession in living memory. What a time it was to take control of the world’s unofficial financial capital! Not even Boris’s eternal optimism could have saved London’s econ-omy — was I the only one who wanted to chuck something at him when he stood up at the Tory party conference and championed the ‘masters of the universe’ in the same week millions were fretting over their savings thanks to the failures of those self-styled masters?

That gaffe aside, Boris’s first year has been remarkably free of embarrassment. True, he made an arse of himself by denying, live on the Today programme, the existence of the memorandum of understanding signed between Ken and the government over the funding of the Olympics. Then there was the bus fiasco on the day it snowed in February — one might have expected Boris to deal better with the jobsworths at the bus depots. But where else for the likes of Polly Toynbee to search for material to damn the great Tory trial run?

Against all the odds, Boris has succeeded in making the mayoral office look dull. There has been no big disaster, but no big idea either. A year into his mayoralty, Ken Livingstone was already working on the congestion charge. He had dumped two decades of planning doctrine by promoting the case for high-rise buildings and was winning his battle to keep the new national stadium at Wembley. Like or loathe Ken, you couldn’t question his energy.

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paul gilboy

May 2nd, 2009 6:50pm Report this comment

boris must deliver real savings and a council tax cut to londoners without cutting front line services. The contrast between a prudent well run london and a prolifigate central government will swing the election decisively for the tories. wasting money on consultant who regurgitate what council officials already produce will save millions, whilst equality & diversity nonsense will deliver the same amount. and get rid of all ken's pet projects and no one who votes will feel a thing. a timely cut will drive an nail in labours coffin.

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