More on Boris Buffoon

Quite a few people are despairing about the Bullingdon Blond's take-over of City Hall. Its true, democracy can throw up some unlikely victors, and no one is perhaps uniquely less qualified than Boris Johnson to take on the mayorship. He has made noises about reducing violent crime on London's streets, but absolutely nothing of substance. He will take the bendy buses away, but replace them with what? Who knows what his view on CrossRail is? He has no demonstrable ability to connect with people who are not toffs like himself (witness his disparaging comments on Liverpool and ugly reference to 'piccaninnies' amongst other gaffes in recent times). It really is too easy to rip hole after hole into the guy.

So instead of doing that, let's look at the upsides:

1. The Olympics is a self-contained process by and large. He won't be able to interfere too much with this.
2. He simply lacks the oomph to carry on expanding the role as Ken did. The mayorship will therefore shrink in size and significance year on year
3. Despite what Cameron thinks right now, Boris will quickly convert his asset of being London mayor into a liability. Expect more gaffes as he reverts to type. Above all, expect complete inaction on any critical London issues: security, transport, availability of low-cost housing etc.
4. He won on a small percentage margin (140,000 odd out of over 2 million voters). He hardly has the electoral mandate for radical change.
5. He also won because of a) transient discontent about the 10p tax issue and b) the Evening Standard's hate campaign, c) the economy/credit crunch wobble

Come the next general election, Boris Johnson will have done more than his fair share of showing that the Tories have nothing to offer centrist politics that Labour does not already offer. The only difference being the Conservative party serves a more exclusive constituency.