Has the sheen come off BoJo? The question is echoing around some virtual corridors in
Westminster this weekend. The Mayor of London was caught off guard by the recent riots and his initial decision to remain en vacances made him look aloof and remote, a sense that grew during his
disastrous walkabout in Clapham. Then he joined Labour in calls for cuts in the police budget to be reversed, a decision that reeked on
opportunism, superficially at least. The FT’s Jim Pickard has an excellent
post on these matters and he reveals that Boris Johnson has been voicing these concerns in private for months and that he has a brace of Cabinet allies: Liam Fox and Michael Gove.
It’s tempting to add this news to the open file about the alleged leadership rivalry between Boris and George Osborne. Fox and Boris strike me as compatriots in arms. Both are classically Conservative and the antipathy between Fox and Osborne is legendary, exacerbated by the gruelling cuts to the Defence budget and the acrimony that has accompanied them. Fox is also the self-made foil to Boris’ inherited privilege: it’s a readymade ticket from that perspective. As for the enigmatic Michael Gove, Pickard’s observations are a reminder that the arch disciple of Blair is a true blue at heart – the embodiment of the fact that social conscience and firm views on law and order are not mutually exclusive.
Pickard’s piece also reveals the simplicity of the Mayor’s re-election strategy. Boris is the insurgent against the current government, the safeguard for Londoners. Pickard writes:
‘In private, apparently, he has been making the argument (against spending cuts to the police) behind the scenes for the last three months. This week he went public very loudly and very deliberately. It was no co-incidence that on Friday morning he was standing next to Tim Godwin, acting head of the Metropolitan Police, as Godwin appeared to criticise interfering politicians. For Londoners, however, alarmed by the sudden deterioration in security, it was what they wanted to hear. The message of election rival Ken Livingstone, that the riots were somehow the fault of the coalition’s cuts of the last year, by contrast smacked of politicking.’
It is often forgotten that Boris runs the most powerful Conservative administration in Britain, unimpeded as it is by sensitive Liberal Democrats. So, it makes perfect sense to differentiate himself from Cameron and the coalition; a strategy that could be revived in the future should he beat Livingstone a second time. The signs are that he might: recent polls are in his favour and the walkabouts got better as the week went by.
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