Bad news for Boris and the Tube booze ban

As mentioned previously...

...this thing was always going to be a disaster. When you start criminalising everyone who uses the Tube, then you can - and should - expect people to respond in a less-than-positive manner.

The assaults upon TfL Staff and Police, however, were unacceptable. People have the right to work in a environment free from crime and the fear of crime and from personal experience, I know how unpleasant it is to have some idiot take a pop at you on the Tube.

I was personally quite pleased by the outcome of the Circle Line Party and the general two-fingers-up shown by most the people that travelled that night to Boris. When you get consensus offending, it is nigh on impossible for the police to enforce the bye-laws of the Underground. Although, on a technical point, the actual act of drinking alcohol on the Tube being a bye-law offence won't happen for a few months! This has simply become part of the conditions of carriage, so you won't see anyone being prosecuted for this offence for a while yet, rather, the police can simply ask you to leave the train and/or network. Contrary to common belief, the Tube is not a public place, rather, a private place of business in which you are there by implied consent (rather like the door of a shop being left open; people may enter, but it's still private property and you can be asked to leave at any time).

If and when the next party happens, it will be interested to see the reaction of the police. I fear that this has simply paved the way for minor low-level disorder in the name of "spearheading our rights", as someone put it on Saturday. I don't actually buy that argument. You don't have a God-given right to drink on the Tube. So the parallels between banning alcohol in a public place versus a private place (see above) don't hold water for me.

Of more importance here is that if Boris decides to push through more headline-grabbing rules like this one that paints everyone with the same brush and treats people like idiots, then we may expect further problems down the line...if you'll excuse the pun.

Boris Johnson; April 2008 Member's Interests from House of Commons website

Remunerated employment, office, profession etc

Column writer in The Daily Telegraph. (£245,001-£250,000)

Articles for GQ Magazine. (Up to £5,000)

Book publishing contract Harper Collins. (Up to £5,000)

Book contract from AP Watt publishers. (£30,001-£35,000) (Registered 11 July 2007)

Speaking engagements booked through JLA Agency:

20 June 2007, Association of Tobacco. (£5,001-£10,000) (Registered 11 July 2007)

17 July 2007, The Communications Network, Claridges Hotel. (£5,001-£10,000) (Registered 13 August 2007)

27 September 2007, Orange, Claridges Hotel. (£5,001-£10,000) (Registered 9 October 2007)

5 November 2007, SCQuaRE International, London. (£5,001-£10,000) (Registered 6 November 2007)

14 November 2007, Lonestar Limited, Battersea Park Events Arena. (£5,001-£10,000) (Registered 22 November 2007)

20 November 2007, Parliament Communications Limited, PIMS Conference 2007. (£5,001-£10,000) (Registered 22 November 2007)

17 May 2007, speaking engagement for 'Northern Entrepreneurs Dinner' at the Hilton Newcastle Gateshead Hotel. (£10,001-£15,000) (Registered 14 June 2007)

Fee from Wall to Wall Media Limited for contribution to television programme. (£20,001-£25,000) (Registered 20 August 2007)

Fee from Tiger Aspect Productions for appearance on 'Dame Edna' television programme, 22 June 2007. (£5,001-£10,000) (Registered 4 September 2007)

Fee from Finland Station for filming television series 'The Flame of Rome'. (Registered 28 January 2008)

Sponsorship or financial or material support

Donation from Buster Burke Limited, Solihull, West Midlands, to fund a researcher in my parliamentary office from September 2006-October 2007. (Registered 25 January 2008)

Boris will give up his seat in the House of Commons earlier than thought

Quite right too. Neither the good people of Henley nor the people of London are getting the best from Boris Johnson right now. The by-election should have been called the day after he was appointed as the Mayor. The original intention was that Boris was going to be in post for several months after May 2008. 

Instead, and in a very cynical ploy, and largely driven by the astonishing 17.6% swing to the Conservatives in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, Boris has realised that he needs to act fast to maintain the momentum that is behind the Tory party right now.

As much as the London Mayoral Election was a product of people's disgust at the Labour party, this by-election was a repeat of this. Local elections have always been a platform of protest.

However, as much as I dislike the phrase, "it's different this time". The swing was just astounding. 17.6% is huge however you cut the cake. The Lib Dems didn't fare well; traditionally, it has been a party with which people have used their vote to register a protest against the incumbent government. This wasn't the case in Crewe.

Gordon Brown is a dead man walking. It is very clear the country wants a change of PM, but that alone is not enough; provided that David Cameron does not commit a serious act of misjudgement, he will be Prime Minister after the next election.

All Boris will need to do from this point forward is to look after the very people the elected him; and to be clear, this was not the poor, working majority of London. The turnout in the "true blue" areas of London was significant and handed Boris the keys to City Hall. I can't help but feel that momentum alone will be enough to carry him forward until the next term, by which time we will certainly have a Conservative Government.

So no Routemaster, then? Colour me surprised

You may recall (read "have been bored senseless") by the continual pledges by Boris Johnson during his election campaign to "bring back the Routemaster". This kind of populist nonsense has already shown to be several tonnes of CO2 in worth.

Kulveer Ranger (I will write about him elsewhere), the new, Tory, Director of Transport, has already had to, er, admit that the return of the Routemaster is unlikely. For all of the white noise generated around the Routemaster - a tired, dangerous, polluting dinosaur of a bus - in the election, it should be no surprise to anyone that it should come to this already. 

Q. How do you turn an estimate of £8m per year to bring the Routemaster back into service into £100m per year?

A. It's Boris, stupid.

P.S. If you missed the original pledges, take a look here, here, or watch the painful live debate of 8th April on BBC Newsnight here. God, I can't stand it.

Death to The Londoner

This was going to be a post about the "The Londoner*", the former printed newspaper that Ken Livingstone created and sent to all London homes following his initial victory in 2000, but the recent stabbing of Steven Bigby, Lyle Tulloch and Jimmy Mizen all within a matter of days of each seemed more important.

There have now been thirteen murders of teenagers in London in 2008. All but one of them have been visible ethnic minorities; the police seem to have a real problem on their hands now.

The British Crime Survey has consistently showed that people's fear of crime is higher than the recorded reality and that actual crime (i.e. crime that is and is not reported to the police) is, on average, over twice the recorded numbers. Furthermore, in an article published in June 2007, the Independent newspaper reported that even the BCS itself understates the problem, since it caps the number of times a victim can be targeted by an offender at five incidents a year.

What this means is that if a participant in the survey states they have been targeted more than five times a year, the sixth incident and beyond are not included in the BCS!

The problem of violent crime - particularly involving knife crime in young persons in London - is a shared one. As such, whilst it is only right and proper that Boris Johnson supports the police in trying to reduce the number of these incidents, the wider community has to share some of the blame for this.

However, what the police and the previous Mayor of London have been extremely adept at to date is dodging the thorny issue of addressing the significant involvement of black teenagers in the above murders. Tony Blair, in his last weeks, made some comments that stirred the fury of various community leaders, when he asked for the black community to address the issue of gangs, knife-carrying and lack of respect on the part of younger people.

Regardless of the arguments for social poverty - and there are many to be made - the reality the police can and will have to be far more aggressive that they have been in targeting those persons who feel that it is perfectly acceptable to walk around London carrying a knife.

The reality of the situation is that there is an elephant in the corner on this issue; the BNP gained a seat at the May 2008 London Assembly vote. The BNP always win in an environment where the white majority feel that their interests and their rights are being diluted away to the benefit of others. The reticence of the police to engage in this issue in the face of being accused of being racist (and - let's be honest, the police does not have a good track record on this issue) is fairly apparent.

No one but the Far-Right wins in this context.

The Police are accused of ignoring the problem on political grounds, people continue to get killed, the fear of crime goes through the roof and the number of BNP members and councillors increases.

London is at a very dangerous junction right now. With an economy on the slide, the perception of crime rising, changing political landscapes and a general sense of disquiet about the land then this is a perfect breeding ground for the BNP.

Unless we want to wake up on the morning after the next Local Elections in London having breakfast with an increased number of BNP members, then the problem of knife crime needs to be dealt with swiftly, even if it causes short-term pain for the Police and the Mayor.

P.S. *The Londoner was indeed put to sleep this month. For which I am glad. I was getting a little tired of taking out a rather tedious piece of propaganda every month to the recycling bin, especially when I live in one of the poorest parts of London. Two and a half million pounds a year had "better uses" splashed all over it.

Why the ban on alcohol on the Tube and Buses is pointless

So, Boris has - to his credit - made good on one of his manifest pledges, namely to bring about a ban on the consumption of alcohol or carrying of open containers on buses and the tube.

He did promise that he'd do this on the train - however, this requires an amendment to the Railways Act, so don't expect anything too soon.

It's very easy to see why people might think this a positive step; however, as with many of the other successful laws in this country that people obey (such as, er, drug, the carrying of knives...er...it being an offence to rob people for their iPods), the law is pointless unless someone if enforcing it.

The staff of the Tube won't bother to challenge people; and I can't say that I blame them. The policing of the Underground is the responsibility of the British Transport Police and unless you happen to live or work in very central London, you're more likely to come across the Queen Mother playing the banjo than you are that lot. And it won't stop people from getting onto the Tube drunk in the first place. If people are going to drink, people are doing to drink. Instead of dealing more effectively with the criminal element, we instead tar everyone with the same brush and treat everyone like a child.

As for the buses - well, it depends on who you believe. The London Assembly suggested that bus crime was up in 2007, with youth offences up by over 55%. Trasnport for London think otherwise. But since, they're both reaching conclusions based on the same report, you have to wonder who is correct.

Points for headlines - 7/10
Points for there being a point - 2/10

Why is having Boris Johnson as a Mayor so bad, then?

This came up a lot just before the Mayoral Election, but more so after the event. It's quite easy for people to explain away the reasons why Ken was kicked out. After all, the Labour Government proper is singularly killing any chances of any other party but the Tories getting the fattest part of the vote at the next General Election and at the next round of the locals when they happen. Contrary to the assertions of David Cameron et al that the Tories are hitting the right kind of message with the electorate, this is more a case of the incumbents making such a hash of Government that people are - and have - willing to vote elsewhere.

In fact, Labour was doomed from the moment that Gordon Brown decided that he would not, after all, call a snap election. People don't like being treated like idiots and to be kept guessing as to "will he, won't he?" All he needed to do at that point was grasp the wave of relief that Labour had finally managed to get Tony Blair to leave the stage, especially since - at that point in time - that the Tories were not focused, not ready and not certain of how to attack Gordon or his policies.

The Lib Dems had zero chance of getting anywhere at the Mayoral Elections (see my "colours to the mast" post on this topic). This was always going to be a two-person race, but the real danger of Brian's participation in the Election was that he was only ever going to take votes off Ken and not Boris. And it was for this reason, despite being a Lib Dem, was that I couldn't vote for him. A cross against "Paddick" was, for me, exactly the same in all ways as my putting a cross against "Johnson".

The turnout in the Mayoral Election was impressive; but the fact it came down to 140,000 votes says it all. There is simply no excuse for people not voting. Postal voting is easy to register for and the polling stations themselves were open for fifteen hours.

Apathy has given us the Mayor that we deserve, on a tiny majority win. 18.98% of eligible voters in London voted for Boris, 16.25% for Ken and a remarkably low 4.3% for Brian as their first choice. Interestingly, however, Brian was the most popular 2nd preference, with 11.66% of eligible voters marking him as their next choice.

Returning to topic, however, why is having Boris as a Mayor such a bad thing? I won't go over the very-well trodden ground of his racist comments, homophobic comments, Liverpool gaffes...to be honest, there are a huge number of very high quality blogs in the blogosphere that have already covered these topics and I have linked to a few of them here.

For me, I have very deep reservations about electing a part-time Mayor who is still the Tory MP for Henley-upon-Thames, a man who refused point-blank to name or discuss the identities of any of the advisors that he "had already selected", a man who has no experience of managing local government, who has only managed fifty people and who has never shown any interest in the future of London until both he and the Tories decided that they could make a run of this and who based his entire manifesto pledges around a series of claims about bendy buses, Routemasters and some made-up numbers about their cost. Oh, er....let's chuck in some PCSOs and fifty BTP officers as well, then.

Ken spent eleven years at the GLA running London and a further eight as London Mayor. What the outer boroughs of London - and let's be clear that it was they - have done is to elect a man who cannot, and never will, identify with the majority of people living and working in London and who was initially set upon this path as a joke.