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Mayor of London: Time to get serious

The steady stream of exposees and innuendo about Ken Livingstone have become a crescendo. The latest is the full length Dispatches programme, which comes on top of a consistent set of stories from Andrew Gilligan in the Evening Standard.

The implication is that Ken Livingstone is a drunk and sleazy politician.

As regular readers of this blog will note, that is a view that I have put forward for some time.

I do not believe he is fit for office. I do believe he should be replaced.

However, the leading opponent of Crony Ken is currently the equally absurd Boris Johnson.

The litany of Johnson's questionable career begins with the fact that he was sacked for making up quotations for an article he wrote as a trainee journalist. Despite his starter marriage, which ended in divorce, and a further marriage which produced four children, Johnson caught the public eye when he lied rather obviously about his considerable philandering, including a four year affair with Petronella Wyatt amongst others.

He also has a consistent pattern of being forced to apologise by his employers for insensitive or false remarks. His friendship with convicted fraudster Darius Guppy led to him being accused of threats of violence against a journalist- and Ian Hislop was able to humiliate him and negate his denials during an appearance on Have I Got News for You by reading verbatim a transcript that was taped of Johnson which appeared to be quite conclusive against him.

In short Boris Johnson is a serial and proven liar, whose bumbling public persona imperfectly covers a pattern of dishonesty of the most personal kind, a man who, by his own admission, finds it impossible to grasp the basic tools of administration. A man- in short- not fit to be Mayor.

There is, however, a candidate in the race who is not the kind of politician- as Livingstone and Johnson are- who values being a "celebrity" above the people that they are elected to serve.

A man who has had a whole career serving the community quite literally on the front line. A man who has not been afraid to tackle radical solutions to the problems of crime. A man with considerable personal integrity.

The only genuine and serious candidate for Mayor of London is the former Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police: Brian Paddick .

UPDATE: Johnson does it again!!- He is *again* forced to apologise . This time for a load of language that he used that is by even the broadest standards unacceptable and actually is racist.

Give it up Boris- a joke's a joke but people have stopped laughing now.

Comments

James Schneider said…
The big challenge for the Paddick campaign and us as LibDems is to articulate to the London electorate, or which I am part, that you have a second preference vote. You can put Brian first and then Boris/Ken depending on who you hate more. If this point does not get across, our vote will be squeezed in a contest given a lot of air time. This will be a loss for London, a loss for Clegg, and the loss of an great opportunity with a superb candidate.
Newmania said…
The second preference vote? ..Shall we call it the "nonentity bonus" . Shall we can speculate as to whether a token gay from a catastrophically failing organisation , the Met , would get more or less of this "who he" dividend than Lee from Blue , who I gather is looking for a gig. Farcical does not do it justice.=but you go on…in your case they are still laughing
If you are unable to see a difference between the allegations against Livingstone and the nonsense cobbled together by Compass ( a think tank mysteriously funded to say the least) about Boris , you know nothing about the GLA and for some recently so precious about ad hominem smears I see you have , in the usual Liberal way , failed to apply your vertiginous standards to yourself .In any case you are doing a deal with Brown for PR as I predicted and as reported in the Indy over the weekend .You are Labour.
..and don’t get me started on Clegg`s hilarious attempt to wriggle out of the fact he promised a referendum and now he is reneging . Would you call that a serial liar ? Well its a start .Propping up Brown is that all you ever do ?
Cicero said…
Oh dear, Newmania: "a token gay", "you are Labour"- where do you think them up?

I see you make no real attempt to defend Boris- "the allegations against him are not as bad as those against Ken" (I paraphrase) is hardly a defence is it? In fact he is a chancer who should not be let within 20 miles of City Hall, as I think you would secretly agree.

Your attack against the police is duly noted, but only Paddick is putting forward serious and well thought out proposals. Boris *did* have proposals, but, "please sir the dog ate my homework".

As for the rest- a) could you get any more anger into a post ? and b)why stopping your blog? Is it to avoid embarassing gaffes in case the pills don't work
Newmania said…
I have dealt with the Boris allegations/tittle tattle at such huge length in the past I cannot be bothered to reprise and I am far from alone. Compass trawled his 20 years of polemic journalism thats all.
These problems are of an entirely different order and not comparable as you imply.
I note you do not bother to deny that the negotiations to defraud the electorate were slipped out over the weekend. Vote Clegg , get Brown.

Blog ... ha ha.
Cicero said…
Would you prefer it, as Labour say "Vote Clegg, get Cameron"?

The fact is that you are wrong, Millions of people will vote Clegg next time because they want to get Clegg. If enough of them do that, in the right constituencies, then even under the current broken system, then it can happen.

Perhaps even more importantly, more and more people also want to change a system that offers consumers so little choice. Either the semi-Socialist Labour party, already worn down by failure, or the shallow and misguided Conservatives who are so hung up on Europe that they can barely see sense. That is not much of a choice.

I want open politics- you just want to rig the market. Unfortunately your party is simply not up to the task of government, even were they to be elected. As I have written elsewhere, our current political system is not controlable, and without dramatic reform, along the lines that we propose, then the only result of electoral victory by Cameron will be disillusion and failure.

Unless you fix the sytem, it does not matter who wins:
Vote Cameron, get Failure;
Vote Brown, get Failure;
Vote Clegg, get at least a chance for change.

(No seriously, why are you giving yp your blog?)
Newmania said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Newmania said…
A PR vote on PR would produce a no vote I`d accept some reform of the HOL along these lines but the answer is to become a big Party not rig the system for small centre Parties.


Blog...a growing family ...(Twins ..May)
Newmania said…
This comment has been removed by the author.

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