The Scoop

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Boris' wasted three years

Adam Bienkov | Wednesday 4 May, 2011 10:28

Has anyone been to Boris Johnson’s new “living bridge” at Waterloo? Or his “island airport” in the Thames Estuary? Perhaps you’ve tripped into one of his unearthed “lost waterways” or taken a gondola down the newly transformed “Venetian-style” Fleet River.

Maybe you’re reading this on your smart phone as you whiz around a Tube system run with Conservative-style efficiency and full mobile coverage. Alternatively you may be sitting in one of Boris’s vast fleet of “new Routemasters” as they glide unfettered across London’s free-flowing streets.

If you’re not doing any of these things then you may just begin to wonder exactly what it is the Mayor has been doing for the past three years.

He’s launched the cycle hire scheme of course and, as one of the less than one per cent of Londoners who occasionally use it, I will be forever grateful. But look beyond that and you will find little more than an overflowing wastepaper basket full of abandoned fantasy schemes, and forgotten gimmicks.

For every one-day story you may read about new airports and bridges that never emerge, there is a three-year story of total inaction in the key areas that he is responsible for.

The police have continued to go from crisis to crisis in the past three years. And whilst he promised to get a grip on Scotland Yard, one of his few acts has been to break that promise and give up chairing the Police Authority. And so with perfect timing, at the very same moment that his former colleagues discussed the controversial policing of recent demonstrations inside City Hall, the Mayor was in front of the cameras outside on a Boris Bike with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

On transport Boris promised to make efficiencies, end tube strikes and hold down fares. Since he was elected fares have risen year on year, strikes have gone completely out of control, and he’s just pledged £50 million for a cable car nobody even asked for.

And what about cuts? He’s got a good deal for London from his friends in government surely? Sadly not. Cuts in London are broadly the same as the rest of the country and he gave up the vast majority of his development funding almost without question.

But there is one area in which the Mayor has excelled and that is in the growth industry of self-promotion. Whether it has been the Beijing Olympics, World Cup bid or the Royal Wedding, Boris has never failed to find an angle from which he can be seen in full view. Whether it’s picking a fight with Sepp Blatter or giving Wills and Kate a bicycle made for two as a wedding gift (initially charged to taxpayers) Boris has managed to effortlessly make himself the story at every turn.

For a man hoping to be re-elected Mayor this is a highly useful skill but it’s one that is of little use to the millions of Londoners who hoped that he would devote his time to improving their lives and their city.

So with next year’s elections coming up, we will no doubt hear plenty more about “living bridges” and back-from-the-dead airports, but Londoners should take each new promise and fantasy scheme with the estuary-worth of salt that it deserves.

Because while the press clippings have piled up like so much sawdust, so far it is only Boris and not Londoners who has much to show for all of his hard work.

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