Does Boris really not know London celebrates St George’s Day?
March 23, 2009 by Martin Hoscik · 2 Comments
Like the Troll, I was bemused by Boris’s claims in a press release confirming plans for the 2009 St George’s Day celebrations that the festival “has been ignored in London for far too long” given that the GLA marked the day in 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008.
My natural inclination is always to give Boris the benefit of the doubt and assume no malice, but he does have form when it comes to shamless spinning in press releases (I’m not sure if that’s worst than when he leaves it to others to tell Londoners of the decisions he’s taken).
It’s unseemly to mislead people on an issue of such sensitivity. The role of the Mayor of London is to bring the capital together, playing up in this way to those who seek to divide its communities cheapens Boris and perpetuates the propaganda of those who claim ‘the system’ favours those from non-British backgrounds.
During the election Boris spent a lot of time complaining about a lack of transparency at City Hall and attacking a claimed culture of spin, so it’s a pity he’s apparently determined to spend his Mayoralty using public money to encourage people to believe things which aren’t true.
This is worst sort of pandering to the Daily Mail-reading, wilfully ignorant from Boris Johnson.
As with his pronouncement about the Christmas tree in City Hall (put out on the same day he was indicted to appear before the standards committee) and his ‘politically correct’ predecessor in that regard. It’s just more straw man arguments about the ‘climate of political correctness’, a la his new portrait of the Queen (City Hall already mentions the Queen in huge letters on the 2002 opening plaque and is located on “The Queen’s Walk”, for crying out loud.)