RSS

Contact us

Tuesday 7 October 2008

Another Voice

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

Most important powers over citizens’ lives are vested in one or the other. The London mayor cannot importantly change the law, or ordain that Crossrail be built or cancelled, or do much about street-cleaning, licensing, housing or education. A constitution that in other layers of government tends to encourage party organisation, cabinets and teams, has in the case of the metropolis allowed for a sort of elected monarch with limited powers. From his glass palace, there are not many levers a London mayor actually has his hands on — even in public transport. Unless he can get a bit of personal tide running in his favour, unless he can foster the idea within and outside City Hall that getting the mayor on-side makes a difference, then he and his office are easily thwarted or sidelined.

It follows that the mayor of London needs to surround himself with a palace guard and to make clear by example that, in the words of that Chicago hit, ‘There’s a lot of favours I’m prepared to do/ You do one for Mama/ She’ll do one for you./ When you’re good to Mama/ Mama’s good to you.’

It worked (speaking of Chicago) for Mayor Daley. It has worked time and again for New York, as Rudy Giuliani and Mayor Bloomberg — men who have succeeded in attaching themselves personally to big ideas and the policies which followed — can testify. The populist and homosexual socialist Mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, with his sandy beaches by the Seine in summer, is in the same mould. Powers and circumstances differ from great city to great city, but in every case a successful mayor has pushed against the limitations of his powers by the power of his personality, and the ability to build around himself something of a cult. A dash of demagoguery is needed.

So, resiling not a jot from what I wrote here in July last year about the need for Boris Johnson to be serious, I’d counsel (after 1 May) against any thought that he needs to be dull. A future London mayor will tread the path that Ken Livingstone has pioneered, or he will go nowhere. Livingstone has been a fine mayor. Mr Johnson’s bedside reading, as he prepares for a few hours’ sleep after the hustings hell of 1 May, should be Tennyson:

Today I saw the dragon-fly
Come from the wells where he did lie.
An inner impulse rent the veil
Of his old husk: from head to tail
Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.
He dried his wings: like gauze they grew;
Thro’ crofts and pastures wet with dew
A living flash of light he flew.

More articles from: Matthew Parris | this section

Print this article  |  Email to a friend  |  Permalink  |   Comment

Post this entry to:   del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Advertisement

Spectator Business | Apollo Magazine

Corporate | Advertising | Privacy | Terms

Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP

All Articles and Content Copyright ©2008 by The Spectator | All Rights Reserved