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Make or break

Taki

Wednesday, 7th May 2008

Taki lives the High Life

I am heartbroken but for once it is not over a girl. I have to stay in the Bagel, hence missing The Spectator’s 180th anniversary party, Pug’s club’s first annual meeting in our new digs, Countess Bismarck’s dinner, Nick Scott’s shindig, and so on. Not having set foot in London in months, I was looking forward to it, but it’s not to be. I should be celebrating because one of the reasons I didn’t like living in London any more was Ken Livingstone. Now he’s voted out, Taki can come back in — it’s as simple as that.

One thing is for sure. London could do with a makeover. Better yet, a broken-window policy. It is hard to believe but the Bagel was saved by one man alone: Rudy Giuliani. I am no fan of that bald bully, but he did save the city. New York was unlivable in under David Dinkins, in the same way London is unlivable in now. People spit, swear, puke, fight, use knives, rob and play loud, disgusting music and no one does anything about it. In fact, London cops are as rare a sight as men with good manners. I remember, back before Rudy, crossing 59th Street on my way to a boxing gym on the West Side and daily being confronted by big, tough black men selling drugs. Now I’m no prude, but being harassed by drug-dealers on my way to train used to drive me nuts. I’d scream at them to f*** off and they would scream back at me. This in front of the Plaza Hotel, the chicest square in the Bagel.

No longer. Rudy put a stop to it, just as he stopped hoodlums menacing drivers on the toll bridges leading to the Hamptons. I used to take a baseball bat with me because if one didn’t pay them for wiping the windscreens, they would either spit at you or kick the car. I had young children with me who would get frightened. Pay them something, said their mother. It was what every fat cat did but I refused. It was a matter of principle and in the end the good guys won. Now, ever so slowly, it is starting again. Bloomberg is a phony who is out for himself and his rich friends. He hasn’t got the guts to stand up to demagogues, race hustlers and ‘advocates’ for troubled minorities. Crime is up as are murders. There are almost 10,000 fewer cops than under Rudy. Bloomberg will not pay the money. He also won’t stick up for cops when the race hustlers go after them — in fact, the contrary. But unlike London cops, Noo Yawk fuzz are out in the mean streets patrolling. Although these things are cyclical, I predict that the Bagel will go downhill quickly in a couple of years. Bloomie will by then be retired and playing the elder statesman. Some statesman. But back to London.

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J.M Abreu

May 8th, 2008 1:25pm

And speaking of hypocrisy in Africa, this week Sir Bob Geldof was invited to an event in Lisbon concerning the sustained development in which he labeled the Angola's government as "criminal". He also said that he doesn't understand why are they constructing million Euro houses, more expensive than the Chelsea or Park Lane ones, while most population is starving and living in decadent conditions. BES, a portuguese bank and financial institution with high investments and interests in Angola, in which the President's Jose Eduardo dos Santos daughter is a main partner and one of the event main sponsors, immediately launched an official press release saying that they don't agree with the "insult" or any other words proffered by Sir Bob on this subject.

J.M Abreu

May 8th, 2008 1:30pm

And speaking of hypocrisy in Africa, this week Sir Bob Geldof was invited to an event in Lisbon concerning the sustained development in which he labeled the Angola's government as "criminal", and that he doesn't understand why are they building million Euro houses, more expensive than a house in Chelsea or Park Lane, while the population around is starving and living in decedent human conditions. BES, a portuguese bank and financial institution with high investments and interests in Angola, in which the President's Jose Eduardo dos Santos daughter is a main partner and one of the event main sponsors, immediately launched an official press release saying that they don't agree with the "insult" or any other words proffered by Sir Bob on this subject.

Bob Silentio

May 9th, 2008 6:34am

Boris is just another flakey tory out for free joyrides. He is swanning off to NY City on a taxpayer-funded jaunt before he has got his fat behind warm on the mayor's throne.The pretext is that he is learning how to run a major city or some tommy rot. This merely serves to highlight the absolute vacuity in the heads of our 'leaders'.None of our pols have anything to offer but lies and corruption and more of the same.

Ken

May 12th, 2008 12:00pm

.."the tiniest rebuke against some African or Muslim outrages over here, I’m immediately labelled a racist and threatened with hate speech..." exactly and that critically important point is forgotten by advanced nations at the peril of losing liberty, hard won freedoms of speech and expression and general progress since the Enlightenment... or have medieval fanatics now advanced too far in Europe?

David Lindsay

May 12th, 2008 4:57pm

The English-speaking white South Africans at least acquiesced in the creation of a Boer Republic as an explicit act of anti-British revenge in a former Dominion of the Crown.

And the white Rhodesians were willing backed up by that Boer Republic when they treasonably declared UDI, also purporting to abolish the monarchy only a very few short years later.

Why do ostensible Tories have soft spots for these people?