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Thursday 16 October 2008

Another Voice

Boris must bore for Britain till he wins — and then shine like Tennyson’s dragonfly

And so it is with embarrassment that I use this column now to unsay much of that. It is time — or almost time — for the old Adam to out. Column number one remains operative for three weeks longer — until (d.v.) Boris wins. It is then that this column, column number two, must be activated. On 2 May Mr Johnson must climb from the campaign slime, still the dreary grub he has forced himself to resemble, and at the tip of a green reed quiver momentarily in the spring sunshine. Then he must take wing as the iridescent municipal dragonfly for which his whole life has been, so far, a preparation.

I’m serious. There isn’t any point in being Mayor of London unless you can shine. There isn’t much you can do as Mayor of London unless you and your personal imprint become the story.

Ken Livingstone has understood this. Much has been written in recent months about Mr Livingstone’s alleged tendency to treat the mayoralty as a personal fiefdom, favouring special advisers who are part of his palace guard and running the organisation and its public relations as though an extension of his own personality. I make no comment (and am in no position to) about the allegations of impropriety among certain of his advisers. I am not advocating impropriety. But the central thrust of the attack on Livingstone has been for personalising the business of being Mayor, and it is this attack that I suggest is misplaced. Boris Johnson can promise what he likes about banishing the Cult of Ken from the corridors of City Hall’s riverside glass palace, but it is the Cult of Ken that achieved most of what has so far been achieved for the mayoralty, and unless the Cult of Ken is replaced by the Cult of Boris, a Conservative mayoralty will never outshine its Labour predecessor.

Big city mayors are tribal chiefs or they are nothing. The post runs against the spirit of a national constitution, unwritten or written, like a rock in the stream of orderly governance. It must wrest from central government above, and local government below, such influence as it can.

More articles from: Matthew Parris | this section

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