Cyclists turn on Boris Johnson over Bus Lanes

He is one of Britain's most famous pedalers, but this week London's cyclists turned on Boris Johnson over plans to allow motorbikes into bus lanes.

Members of the London Cycling Campaign have told the Mayor to backpedal from the 'snap decision' which was made in the latter stage of his election campaign.

LCC Chief Executive Koy Thomson said that the mayor's policy was based on 'flawed methodology' and would lead to an increase in road deaths and pedestrian casualties. Thomson said earlier this week:

"This would be a decision taken not only against the advice of transport officials and without the input of cycling and pedestrian groups, but also in the face of a warning that this could ‘disbenefit’ cyclists and pedestrians."

In fact officials at Transport for London have already spoken out against the policy, which they describe as ill thought out and dangerous. TFL Managing Director for Surface Transport David Brown said:

"There is no evidence to indicate that motorcyclists would see any significant safety benefits from being allowed to enter bus lanes but that there were potential disbenefits for both cyclists and pedestrians."

Because like Boris Johnson's plans to rephase traffic lights, the 'disbenefits' of this new policy would include a big increase in the number of fatal accidents and casualties. And while Boris and his boss are not particularly bothered about their own safety, this policy would put the safety of many more Londoners' lives at risk.

And unlike gang crime and the spread of knives and guns, safety on the roads is relatively easy to improve. And as Ken Livingstone proved in his own term, simple measures can save hundreds more lives than crime crackdowns ever will.

LCC's Campaign Manager Tom Bagdanowicz has said of Boris' rushed plans to allow motorycles into bus lanes:

“Providing new high speed channels for motorcycles along major roads will inevitably increase motorcycle use. More motorcycle traffic will spread to all streets in London and will bring with it an increase in casualties for vulnerable road users. We’re asking our supporters to urge the Mayor to consider the safety impact on all London streets for every road user before any decision on allowing high-speed vehicles into bus lanes is made.”

You can tell Boris to 'Stop, Look and Listen' to Londoners by signing the LCC petition here.

Will Boris Johnson get stung by his worker bee?

There's a very revealing piece by George Pitcher on the Telegraph website. Pitcher who knows Tim Parker well, reckons that Boris Johnson's appointment of this 'Slash and Burn' man will work out badly for both of them:

"I think he's riding for a fall. As is Boris Johnson. My colleague Simon Heffer wrote just before the Mayoral election that Boris has founded his various careers on "stooges", an observation examined at some length in another colleague Andrew Gimson's biography of the mop-haired Mayor. The stooges – at Oxford, in journalism and in politics – are the people who do all the work, while Boris concentrates on his more important task of self-aggrandisement."

"Parker, in Boris's mind, will be King Stooge. Boris doesn't understand business. Far too boring for a man of vision such as himself. Also, it's rather "trade" for a toff from Eton and the Bullingdon Club. So Parker will be his Managing Director, he thinks, and the one who can have all those tedious meetings about budgets while Boris gets photographed with Miss Bust-Conductor on a new Routemaster."

"The trouble with this plan is that, talented as he undoubtedly is, Parker is not essentially a runner of businesses. He's a turner-round of businesses and a deal-maker. He's a slash-and-burn man, laying waste to unproductive factories and under-performing people. He once told me that it's best to fire people as soon as you arrive somewhere, before you've got to know them. That may be just what London needs – some cost-saving at the centre, to better serve the interests of Londoners, who Parker calls "shareholders".

"But unless Parker is allowed to float London on the Stock Exchange, or organise a management buy-out of Chelsea, or break up Westminster and sell the profitable bits, he will quickly grow bored. Once he's made something pay, he wants out. In that sense, he is very much like Boris (though without the narcissism). He even shares a propensity for a storm of unruly, big hair (I note that reports have suggested he's known as the Prince of Darkness at companies he's commanded – I can only say that I only heard him called Bogbrush on account of his mop)."

"Parker is not so much a stooge as a sibling and there will be grim rivalry. Boris thinks he'd bought a drone. He'll get stung by a busy bee."

I don't normally quote at such length but this is fascinating stuff and very much goes against all of the praise Boris' new appointment has got elsewhere. 

As ever in papers such as the Telegraph and the Evening Standard, the most revealing articles are often resigned to the blog sections where few people will ever read them. 

But with the appointment of the man who will really be running London over the next four years, this is one article that deserves to be much more widely read.

Lily Allen says Paparazzi are like the BNP

Singer Lily Allen has lashed out at the paparazzi, claiming that "most of them look like they wouldn't be out of place at a BNP meeting."

After my own paparazzi efforts earlier this week, I can't help but be offended.

So come on paps, repair your reputation, and bash the fash with some Wallywatching of your own.

It won't take much. Just a few snaps of Richard Barnbrook goosestepping along to some ballet, or some pics of the great sculptor at work. But whatever it is, get yourself involved ;)

---

Have you been watching Wally? Have you seen the berk in beige? If so, please send all pictures, sightings and related Wallyspots to Wallywatch at the usual address ;)

Richard Barnbrook wants more homeless Londoners

Richard Barnbrook of the BNP is fighting against the building of affordable homes in Barking and Dagenham because it will lead to 'more immigrants' living in the borough.

Barking and Dagenham is one of the most deprived boroughs in Lonson, but the British National Party's new star on the London Assembly is trying to prevent the building of thousands of new homes for low income people and key workers.

Barking Labour leader Cllr Fairbrass said earlier this week: 

"They voted against it. They also voted against Barking Riverside, where 4,300 affordable homes will be built.They will be social rented homes. That's the problem, they keep voting against them. There's no logic to it. It's as simple as that."

However a quick look at the BNP's London website reveals their logic all too clearly. Under the headline "Labour Government Builds Houses for More Immigrants in Barking and Dagenham," BNP Councillor and all-round yob Bob Bailey argues that 'key workers is a very loose term' and then argues that the houses will probably not go to those key workers anyway.

However, what the headline of the article reveals, is that it is not that the houses will not go to key workers, that is their problem, but that they will. 

Because the best available statistics show that ethnic minorities and immigrants are massively over-represented in 'key' job sectors such as social care and the NHS. And while ethnic minorities only make up around 10% of the population in Britain, they make up around 30% of staff in the NHS.

So while Barnbrook and the BNP pose as the friends of the working class, it is exactly those people that work the hardest in their borough that they would see without a home. And for every low-paid white person they keep out of a home is another opportunity for them to gerrymander a vote. 

Because the BNP have made gains across London by trading off of people's discontent. And the more people are kept out of buying their own homes, then the more they will reap the rewards at the polls.

So the next time Richard Barnbrook lectures the working class, from the comfort of his Blackheath flat, just remember that it is his interest and not theirs that he is really fighting for.

Boris Johnson or Tim Parker: Who runs London?

There was a lot of fuss before the elections about the fact that Boris Johnson wouldn't say who was actually going to be running London if he got in. Well with the appointment of Tim Parker yesterday as Chief Executive of the GLA, head of TFL, First Deputy Mayor and King High Lord of everything, we now finally know.

Multi-millionaire union breaker and asset-stripper Tim Parker has been given the keys to run pretty much everything at City Hall, and unsurprisingly it's causing a bit of a row.

Here's GMB union boss Paul Kenny:

"This is a scary moment for London’s commuters. Tim Parker is one of the multi-millionaire elite private equity buccaneers who asset stripped the AA by cutting jobs and cutting services and raising prices to customers. At AA he targeted and sacked by bullying out of the door the sick and disabled staff. He took £30 million out of AA when he left it last year, having saddled AA/SAGA with £4.8 billions of debt. The good work of the last number of years is under threat."

and Bob Crow:

Tim Parker has a reputation as a private-equity asset-stripper and has been dubbed the Prince of Darkness by unions that have encountered his methods in the past. We are well aware of his track record, and Mr Parker has the opportunity to leave that reputation behind him when he starts work for the Mayor of London. The world’s finest metro system does not need an asset-stripper or a Prince of Darkness, but it does need its modernisation programme put back on track if it is to be ready for the 2012 Olympics.

Believe me when I say that this is just a taster of the shit that is being kicked up over this. Labour Assembly Members are calling it a 'farce' and the Chair of the Assembly is even considering taking legal action. This looks to be building into a monster of a row and here's why:

Boris Johnson was elected on a manifesto of cutting waste. Londoners knew that as they put a tick in his box. However what they didn't know was that this would mean the kind of huge cuts and privatisation programme that Parker is well known for.

What they also didn't know was that London would be run by every Tory millionaire under the sun bar the actual Mayor himself Boris Johnson. And in the few short weeks that he has been in power, Boris has delegated almost every role the Mayor has to a team of unelected officials and consultants. 

Many of these are working for free, supposedly out of the goodness of their hearts and many are retaining other positions which have direct conflicts of interests with their new roles. In this short time, a whole network of power and influence has been built up in London over which the Mayor himself seems to have little control. So to what ends is this.

Of course Team Boris say this is all for the good of Londoners. Boris' new team of mega-rich capitalists have suddenly seen the light and want to spend their twilight years in municipal service of the city that has enriched them. But the simple truth is that we just can't know what their motives are.

Who now runs London?

Because although when you elect a leader, you normally know that many other people will be doing the work, you still believe that the person you elect and their elected deputies will be the people who will be in charge of it all. But after the last few weeks of appointments, it is clear that this is not now the case at City Hall.

Watching Boris fail to answer assembly questions on Wednesday it was clear to me that this man had absolutely no idea what was going on in his own administration. He had some jokes and some prepared responses, but when the meeting went off the script, he just didn't know what to say.

The same thing occurred to me then that has occurred to me almost every time I have seen Boris in action, and that is that Boris is in no way in charge of his own operation. 

So when Londoners elected him it is now clear that they didn't elect a leader but a frontman. However, when they elected him, they didn't know exactly what he would be a frontman for. But with the appointment of Tim Parker as City hall boss, this may finally be becoming clear.

Wallywatch at London Southbank

Today's Wallywatch comes from Queen's Walk on the Southbank and was found by a Wally Spotter who reads The Troll. 

The large drill is a gradually changing piece of art that appeared at some point in the last week. Apparently it's from the people that brought the Sultan's Elephant to London, and we don't yet know exactly how it will end up. 

I love these kinds of things. They make London the exciting place to be that it is and they have absolutely nothing to do with getting 'more bang for your buck,' as Boris Johnson would put it. 

However, you should probably enjoy them while you still can because all the signs are that this is exactly the sort of thing that we will be seeing less of now Dr Cuts and the Cutters have got into power.

---

Have you been watching Wally? Have you seen the berk in beige? If so, please send all pictures, sightings and related Wallyspots to Wallywatch at the usual address ;)

Does Boris Johnson know who is running London?

Boris Johnson has given away major powers on planning decisions to an unelected advisor, it emerged yesterday.

Under questioning from the assembly, the Mayor was forced to admit that Ian Clement and other advisors have been given these powers because he 'doesn't have the time' to exercise them himself.

Assembly members first discovered that the powers had been given away when they received copies of letters addressed to Local Authorities from Ian Clement stating that 'the Mayor has delegated his planning powers to me.'

However, when asked by Jenny Jones exactly what powers had been given to Clement, Boris said that he 'didn't intend to anticipate exactly what sort of decisions he will be making.'

Yet the planning letters sent out by Clement and seen by the Troll show that he was exercising these powers less than two weeks into the new administration, causing some opposition members to ask whether Boris actually knows what is going on. 

When asked, our new Mayor replied that he 'imagined' that Clement would be "taking decisions of great importance for Londoners as you would expect a Deputy Mayor to do."

Indeed Londoners would expect an elected Deputy Mayor to be making these kinds of decisions. However, Ian Clement is not an elected Deputy Mayor. Ian Clement is a paid advisor whose title 'Deputy Mayor, government relations' is not even a function represented in the law. As an unelected advisor he is therefore expected to give the Mayor advice on decisions. He is not however expected to make those decisions for him.

The revelation that Boris has already given up some of his key powers to unelected advisors has prompted some to question whether Boris can continue to do the five jobs that he has collected for himself. 

Because with no Henley by-election in sight and with Boris' job as the head of the Metropolitan Police authority not even begun, opposition members are now questioning if Boris' has the time to properly concentrate on what should be his most important role, being London's Mayor. Labour assembly member John Biggs said yesterday:

"Boris Johnson says he is too busy to make planning decisions. I wonder then where he finds the time to continue writing his £250,000 a year Daily Telegraph column?"

Boris' colleague at the Telegraph, Simon Heffer had the answer to these questions a month ago:

"There were stooges when Mr Johnson was en route to be president of the Oxford Union. He has had stooges all through journalism, who did significant parts of his various jobs for him, usually with little thanks or reward. And now there are stooges in politics.

If Mr Johnson became Mayor tomorrow, he would be the front man for nameless others who would run London. That may well be better than more of Mr Livingstone. It would not be what people think they are voting for."

---

Would you like to be one of Boris Johnson's paid stooges? Would you like a job that Boris just can't do? If so send a CV and sae to: HR Dept, City Hall, Queen’s Walk, London SE1A 2AA.