Boris johnson

What does No.10 make of Boris’s campaign so far? Not much, judging by Alice Thomson’s column (£) in the Times today: ‘Downing Street is worried. When the mayor came in with his Australian election strategist Lynton Crosby last week, they thought their plans were “underwhelming” and lacked a simple ‘retail offer’ for voters.’ This certainly fits in with what I’ve noted before: that Team Boris is being significantly quieter than Team Ken. Indeed, further research suggests that the current Mayor is trailing far behind his challenger in the all-vital Evening Standard campaign coverage. I’ve sifted through their archives for the past six months, and it turns out that for every Boris initiative being mentioned

The declaration by Len McCluskey, the leader of Unite, that public sector unions should consider disrupting the Olympics is going to re-ignite the whole debate about union power. McCluskey tells Andrew Sparrow that ‘The attacks that are being launched on public sector workers at the moment are so deep and ideological that the idea the world should arrive in London and have these wonderful Olympic Games as though everything is nice and rosy in the garden is unthinkable.’ McCluskey’s ill-considered threat is a headache for Labour. Unite is Labour’s largest donor and the Tories are already calling on Miliband to denounce him. I suspect that the Boris campaign will be

When David Cameron addressed Tory MPs on Friday, he told them that the London Mayoral elections were ‘the binary moment of 2012’. He argued that if Labour lost in London, one of their traditional strongholds, it would be a disaster for Ed Miliband. In the Cameron narrative, a Boris victory in May would mean that the Labour leader would remain under pressure and continue to be the subject of regular attacks in the press. Interestingly, there are Liberal Democrats close to Nick Clegg who share this analysis. Their worry is that a Livingstone victory combined with bad local election results for Lib Dem could turn the deputy Prime Minister back

We now have the first major gaffe of the 2012 London Mayor race and to everyone’s surprise it wasn’t Boris. Ken Livingstone granted an extraordinary interview to the New Statesman, where his comments on the incumbent mayor, Margaret Thatcher and his work ethic have caused a decent stir. However, it is the thoughts on homosexuality in the Conservative Party – ‘the Tory party was riddled with it like everywhere else is’ – that have prompted outrage. He was claiming hypocrisy, but instead came off bitter and twisted. The pro-Boris politicos are delighted – Ken’s true colours have been exposed, they say, and Labour should deselect him at once. But they

It looks like the May’s election for Mayor of London will be a close run thing. A new poll today from YouGov has Ken Livingstone two points ahead of Boris Johnson – a big turnaround from the eight point lead Boris had in June: Ken shouldn’t be popping any champagne corks yet, of course. His lead is well within the poll’s margin of error, and there’s three and a half months to go before election day. But he’s certainly looking more likely to topple Boris than he did seven months ago. So why the change? YouGov’s Peter Kellner has a good article on the poll’s details here, but two key points jump

Boris Johnson was very well behaved this evening when he appeared before the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs. He stayed off the topics of Europe and tax and instead confined his remarks to London, saying that he wanted the capital to be an example of ‘cost-cutting, one nation Conservatism’. Those MPs inside the room say the performance was classic Boris, as one put it ‘he left no erogenous zone unstroked’.   Afterwards, Mark Reckless, a north Kent MP, asked the Mayor a sceptical question about his plan for a new airport in Kent. In the questions, I understand that Boris also took the chance to express his support for Rebecca

 It is an eternal and reassuring fact of human nature that when an editor announces that he is stepping down from a great publication, there is not the slightest interest in what he plans to do with his life, or even who he was. I have received many phone calls from friends and colleagues since announcing last Friday that this would be my last edition, and they only want to know one thing. ‘Who is taking over?’ I wish I knew myself. But since the white smoke has yet to go up, I thought I had better write a general welcome to whoever you are out there. I propose to open

A few months ago I hosted a debate at my think tank with one of the key Tahrir Square leaders. After his talk about Egypt, he warned the audience: the protests that toppled Hosni Mubarak were not just an Egyptian or Middle Eastern phenomena; it could – and, he said, would – spread to the West. For the youth of today, he argued, feel disempowered, empoverished and betrayed. As protests spread from New York to London and other European capitals, it seems that Egyptian protester may have been right. Today’s efforts to occupy the London stock exchange failed but protesters remain on the grounds of St Paul’s Cathedral. Whatever happens

Here’s the latest in our Another Voice series of posts, which give prominence to viewpoints outside the normal Coffee House fold. This time it’s the IPPR’s Associate Director, Will Straw, with his five-point take on the fringe events of Tory conference, and the lessons that might be learned from them: 1. The Tories know that winning a working majority in 2015 is no easy task. The most popular fringe event according to Fringelist.com was ConservativeHome’s event on ‘How the Conservatives can win the next election.’ Reflecting his remarks from the panel, YouGov’s Stephan Shakespeare wrote yesterday that, “today’s electoral maths makes an overall a majority a mountain to climb”.  

Boris Johnson must be one of the very few politicians in the world to make the audience laugh before they even start their speech. Just by walking on stage, he has the effect of a good comedian: the punters start to smile, in anticipation of some good one-liners. In today’s case, Boris got a standing ovation before he opened his mouth. Here is the man judged by Ladbrokes as the most likely next Conservative leader, but he had not come to stir. The Prime Minister – who lavished praise on the Mayor last night – was in the hall. It was all Big Society (BoJo division): affordable housing and a reprise of

In just over an hour, Boris will make his first appearance in Manchester. The Tory hierarchy is acutely aware that for at least the next 18 hours or so this will be Boris’ show. There’s a certain nervousness about what might be in Boris’s speech. One MP close to the leadership just came up to me and asked, “You guys don’t have any idea what he’s going to say, do you?” Boris has, apparently, being telling people that he hasn’t written his speech yet, which is only increasing the anxiety that he might make some fruity comments on Europe or tax. One thing that’s certain is that the hall will be

The great pastime of Tory MPs is leadership speculation. Who’s up? Who’s down? Who’s in? Who’s out? Who succeeds Cameron? Simple, says Toby Young in our cover piece this week, it has to be Boris. Toby’s confidence in Boris is such that he once bet Nigella Lawson £15,000 that blond bombshell would lead the party one day. Subscribers can read about that story here, and non-subscribers can subscribe to the Spectator for just a £1 an issue. In the meantime, here’s a cover piece from the archives on this same theme: Boris is hot on Dave’s heels. Boris must wait his turn, Fraser Nelson, The Spectator, 10 May 2008 The

If anyone had any doubts about just how personal the 2012 London mayoral campaign is going to be, they should have been dispelled by Ken Livingstone’s speech to Labour conference today. Ken claimed that the Mayor had ‘got what he wished for’ in above average unemployment and accused him of standing for a ‘privileged minority’. He then went on to draw an equivalence between Boris’s student antics and those of the rioters: “What is the difference between the rioters, and a gang of over-privileged arrogant students vandalising restaurants and throwing chairs through windows in Oxford? Come on Boris – what’s the moral difference between your Bullingdon vandalism as a student

Back in 2008, one Mayoral candidate explained that it would require imagination to solve London’s housing problems. The candidate developed a manifesto that suggested a new form of “democratic” home ownership, which which would “help build stronger communities”, and which would allow houses to “remain affordable for future generations”. He said he would “create a network of Community Land Trusts, managed by cooperatives to give homes to people who are indispensable to this city.” His name was Boris Johnson and since he was elected not a single Community Land Trust has materialised in the capital. This is a quiet tragedy. Just like Ken Livingstone, Boris has spent huge amounts of