He’s saying that Boris is someone who, through charm, is capable of getting people to do lots of work for him for little obvious reward.
How is this a bad thing for the ratepayers of London?
A good thing
Yesterday's Telegraph contained an astonishing ad hominem attack by Simon Heffer on Boris Johnson. This is perhaps the least of it:
In his superb biography of him, my colleague Andrew Gimson outlines the practice that has allowed Mr Johnson to get so far in life: he has used his charm, to which only a few more seasoned hands are immune, to enlist at every stage what Mr Gimson calls "stooges" to help him advance.But there's a wonderful comment left on Tim Worstall's site:There were stooges when Mr Johnson was en route to be president of the Oxford Union. He has had stooges all through journalism, who did significant parts of his various jobs for him, usually with little thanks or reward. And now there are stooges in politics.
Let me get this straight…
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Fabio P.Barbieri
May 2nd, 2008 8:05amSimon Heffer is the conservative counterpart of Madeline Bunting or Robert Fisk. Put it simply, he's nuts.
Commondog
May 4th, 2008 2:08pmGetting people to do lots of work for no reward is in the micro and the short term sense, of course a great result.
But if said ripped-off person does this on too many occasions ie every working day, then he/she has little to spend on Smarties does he/she?
Then the Smartie factory gets closed down.