You just can’t resist, can you? Conflating the money that Boris earns in his own free time with his role as Mayor of London just to help launch an attack on him.

Childish in the extreme.

You mean like blaming me for the G20 riot and the police response?

It is comparable – if Boris thinks that kind of money is “chicken feed”, then why isn’t he allocating it to the rape crisis centres that he talked about in his manifesto and in fact used as an issue to attack Ken Livingstone?

i think the facts speak for themselves, LFAT:

Johnson promised £744,000 towards rape crisis centres during his campaign but has currently budgeted just £467,000.

If 250000 is ‘chicken feed’ to boris alone then it’s evven less to the GLA.

but he’s cut the funding, going back on his election pledge.

Do you support his actions, as someone who self-identifies with Boris’ party?

very easy to try to change the subject with accusations of childishness. these are rape crisis centres being discussed here.

LFAT will defend all acts done in the name of the Tory party no matter how bad, which is a shame.

No it’s not, LFAT is a prick so it’s to be expected.

True. Apologies for trying to excuse his behaviour.

On the other hand, Boris could pay the money out of his own pocket and sew up re-election right now.

‘On the other hand, Boris could pay the money out of his own pocket and sew up re-election right now.’

But then he’d have nothing to feed the chickens.

Is anyone seriously amazed at this? Boris Johnston was never nominated as a serious candidate. He was nominated purely as a ‘personality’, ‘non-politician’ or even ‘stop Ken’ candidate. Boris could have read out the phone book and got elected at the time. The type of people who voted for Boris fall into two categories:

1) Those who would vote for a bladder on a stick as long he wears a Blue rosette.
2) Those who would vote for any populist personality. You know the type. Those that think Jeremy Clarkson would be a great Prime Minster

I think it futile to attempt to lay a glove on Boris through his various policy backtracks or disasters because policy is not Boris’s strong suit or even part of the appeal. No-one is going to switch from Boris because they have suddenly found him to be a bumbling halfwit.

Jimbo @ 9

There’s also people who got a bit fed up with Ken and some of the statements made by his supporters:

”Johnson ‘would destroy London’s unity’ as mayor”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/aug/04/london.localgovernment.

And I’m sure Damon that Boris said some silly things, indeed the wuote above was about his failure to get black votes because he has a habit of saying daft things like racism is natural and:

“‘They say he [Blair] is shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird.” (Daily Telegraph, 10/01/02)

damon @10

Sure, I accept that there was an element of ‘Stop Ken’ but to replace him with a political lightweight? The Tories have plenty of credible, able people (whatever I think of their politics) who could do a passable job as London Mayor, but they went with Boris because he was popular, in a blokey sort of a way.

I agree that he does seem like a bit of a political leightweight, but the accusations that ”Borris is a racist” (which is what they more or less were), were without propper foundation.

He apoligised for his insensitivity (when he started his run for mayor) realising that there was nowhere on the earth that you could now make jokes about, whether that was Papua New Guinea, Liverpool, or ”Timbuktu”. You’d surely offend someone.

But reading Johann Hari in the Independent this morning, I think I agreed with him that sometimes we can be a bit too sensitive. ”Stop all this Brüno-bashing. The joke isn’t on gay people; it’s on bigots who believe he is real and typical of gays”.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-stop-all-this-brnobashing-1755788.html

I’m not defending what Johnson said to the same extent that Johann Hari is defending Sacha Baron Cohen’s character- but there was obviously (I thought) something clearly pantomime about Johnson’s infamous utterings about ”chief-killing” and ”watermellon smiles”.

There is a might, might big gap between Sasham Baron Cohen making art and a politician representing 8 million people.

‘I’m not defending what Johnson said to the same extent that Johann Hari is defending Sacha Baron Cohen’s character- but there was obviously (I thought) something clearly pantomime about Johnson’s infamous utterings about ”chief-killing” and ”watermellon smiles”.

Boris was sending up Blair’s imperialistic approach to foreign affairs. Blair proved himself time and time again to believe it is Britain’s place to bring ‘civilisation’ to the rest of the world. Johnson’s an idiot, but he’s a literate idiot.

That’s a big stretch there Shatterface, even for you, that Boris was sending up Blair’s imperalistic tact, what about all the otehr daft racist things Boris has said?

All satire?

Methinks not…

I don’t really care for this climate where everyone’s words are over analysied and checked to see whether possible offense could be taken from them. ”What did he say about Papua New Guinea? OMG! Quick, ring up the PNG embassy and tell them what he said ….. are they offended?”

It’s a bit silly really. And as for Sacha Baron Cohen just making art …. tell that to the government of Kazakhstan.

Now I know that a lot of people can’t stand BJ. He’s a posh Tory, who talks of the couple of hundred grand he gets for his Daily Telegraph column as ”chicken feed”.

But I have more of a problem with those people to the left, who are dishonest and use underhand tactics to undemine political (and idealogical) opponents.

So if you remember the case of Mark Wadsworth, who was able to get one of Boris’s aides fired.
In an interview, Wadsworth had stated to this Johnson advisor that many people of Caribbean origin would be so dismayed at a Johnson mayoralty that they might leave the country.

Remember the story?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/23/london.boris

What a load of BS that whole thing was IMO. From Darcus Howe first writing about older Caribbeans ”going home” to Wadsworth then repeating it in an interview, recording the response and then like some cry baby running to the Big Brother diary room, proceeded to make a big political row about it.

How many people of Caribbean origin have left the country because of Boris Johnson?
None I reckon. And if some black people were alarmed about him becoming mayor, it was probably because of peopel like Howe, Wadsworth and Doreen Lawerence who were scare mongering.

I agree with the person who wrote in Spiked-online, who said of this incident:

”….this is not so much a race row as a ‘phrase row’, a squabble over etiquette. It will do nothing to generate an enlightened, grown-up debate about race relations in London, but a great deal to entrench the New Labour government’s stifling culture of speech-policing in the name of protecting the public from anything that might be deemed offensive.”
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/5378/

Damon:

Again, by saying “tell that to the government of Kazakhstan”, which has been wonderfully boosted by all the free press he offered, you are missing the trick about what Cohen can do and what Boris can do.

“But I have more of a problem with those people to the left, who are dishonest and use underhand tactics to undemine political (and idealogical) opponents.”

That surprises me little, it seems you are willing to accpet such traits from BJ and fellows on ‘your side’ but offe rno such care and concern with your attemted smears on others, thus, this makes it hard ot take you at all seriously, your arguments have no highground and are partizan at best.

One thing I think is safe to say, based on the London boroughs that voted for BJ and thier official ethinicty make-up stats, Boris’ cut of the non-white vote was pretty tiny.

Daniel Hoffmann-Gill

I think that Johnson has been completely inclusive so far and said all the right things as far as London’s diversity being an asset etc.

The reason I’m more concerned about the left, is that I see myself as being left and liberal, so I’m more concerned by what ”my own side” were saying and doing. I don’t have much time for Tories, but don’t think they should be unfairly smeared either.

And I agree with your last point. It was the outer boroughs that won it for Boris.
But there are also people who didn’t care for Ken Livingstone’s Jesse Jackson style race politics and the way that some of his supporters conducted themselves.

It was supporters of Livingstone and Lee Jasper that were making a big issue of how Johson would be a disaster for minority people in the capital.

But I’m not here to defend Johnson too much, as he is the person he his, and has said some dodgy things in the past. But I really think he’s not as bad as some people would like to make him. (But that doesn’t mean I think he’s much good either).

I didn’t care for some of the coverage I saw in The Voice newspaper at this time.
This wasn’t the worst, but was all I could find online:
http://www.voice-online.co.uk/content.php?show=13352

Activists in the Mark Wadsworth, Lee Jasper style are part ofthe problem I think.
Livingstone had Jasper working for him, and Boris has Munira Mirza.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/munira_mirza/profile.html

That I think that she is better than he ever was, does not make me a rightwinger.

damon:

Okay, let’s just make one thing clear, here is a blog post about BJ’s failure to keep a promise he made on a very important issue, you wade in and do the classic:

LOOK OVER THERE AT WHAT KEN DID!

Which is something the Evening Standard and Mail have a great habit of doing bu tit won’t wash here.

This thread is not about the old major or the current major’s views on race, you brought that in, it is about BJ not keeping a promise.

Yes it’s off topic quite quickly. But the only reason I said anything in this thread was because of Jimbo @ 9 and then you bringing up Johnson’s speaking of AK47s and ”pangas”.

My point was that I don’t really care for that kind of anti-Johnson baiting (if that’s what it might be called).
He’s an affable chap (but a bit of a prat). Not going to be much good as mayor I think. And maybe it really doesn’t matter that much, as nothing seems to change that much whoever is in.

Personally, I was disapointed that the first things he did after getting in was to scrap plans for a new south London tram. And a new (very much needed IMO) east London bridge.

Damon:

Whatever excuse you want to put forward for the comment@10 is fine but you’ve spoke little on the actual post.

Also, what you term anti-Johnson baiting I prefer to call highlighting him not keeping electoral promises.

I’m sorry if I don’t know this website that well, and whether Boris Johnson is considered to be a ”bad ‘un” by many people.
Sure you should hold elected officials to their promises. If anyone thinks doing what was shown in that video was a way to go about it, then fair enough.

The comments about him squirming and chicken feed are fine too, but I wonder if this is supposed to be funnier because of this position as a ”Tory toff duffer” (prone to racist outbursts) has been the one assigned for him.
I know on a previous (leftist) website I used to visit, that was the case, and any other points (like I’ve raised here) were just rejected as unimportant.

This discussion has gone on a wee bit too long I feel and you’ve nowt to be sorry for in my opinion.