Boris Johnson has “legitimate questions” to answer over whether his policies represent “a consistent coherent vision for London” according to the London Assembly.
The Assembly, which yesterday met to debate the Mayor’s responses to questions about his proposed economic development, transport and planning strategies, has called on the Mayor to “show greater ambition and leadership for London”.
At yesterday’s meeting a majority of Assembly Members agreed a motion declaring: “That the Assembly notes the answers to the questions asked but expresses concern that, after more than a year in charge, the Mayor has failed to develop a coherent vision for London and calls upon the Mayor to show greater ambition and leadership for London.”
Labour’s John Biggs said: “There is a danger that a Mayor who is a media figure and likes to be admired won’t risk upsetting some people by picking the fights that need a heavyweight champion in the ring for London.”
Mike Tuffrey AM who leads the Assembly’s Liberal Democrat group said the Mayor’s strategies “fail to spell out all the big strategic steps that London needs to take if our City is to remain a world beater.”
Leo says
July 23, 2009 at 2:43 pmEven those Londoner’s that voted for Boris Johnson have started to feel severely let down , this alone must tell people that the problem of Boris Johnson’s Mayoralty needs immediate and urgent attention that needs dealing with in a completely professional manner , with strictness .
I hope for the sake of all Londoner’s that City Hall gets a Tight Grip on this situation because there is a real danger that we are all going to suffer in the end .
Londoner’s now need Justice and Direction and I personally believe that this will only happen if a vote of confidence is held to decide if Boris Johnson should continue to be Mayor for London or not .
I hope that City Hall is able to navigate it’s way out of this mess that Boris Johnson has created before we all sink together .
TawkinSenz says
July 24, 2009 at 1:31 pmWhen Boris first got elected I was concerned he would not be able to handle the job. However in his favour he was left with a good basis on which to start by his predecessor. The Transport unions were generally placated, the improvements to the tube were well underway and going relatively smoothly, the collapse of Metronet didn’t seem to be the big problem it first appeared and raising revenue from business (i.e PFI) was quite easy in London.
Today we face an entirely different climate – not Boris’s fault, but this now requires a lot of skill. Increased militancy of unions, reduced tax receipts / spending by business due to the recession and the whole priority of Londoners is very different to what it was about 2 years ago.
To say expert leadership is required is a massive understatement, and I suspect even experienced London politico’s like Ken would be struggling in this environment. John Biggs has hit the nail on the head when he notes that Boris is merely a popularist (I’m paraphrasing) and will not take on the less popular – but still vital – decisions that London needs at the moment.
I see Boris is removing the bendy buses today – as an experienced cyclist I’ve not really had a problem with them and they certainly are not as dangerous as the big killers – the skip lorries. However I feel this is an example of his popularist attitude because he obviously hasn’t considered that removing bendy buses and replacing them with a ‘more frequent set of single decker buses’ – will cost more to run (more drivers, more fuel etc.) and will actually make congestion worse – which will eventually have the people on that route moaning profusely.
However I’m not even sure where he got the idea from that removing these would be a vote winner – because I can’t actually find anyone who has them high on their priority list for ‘changes I would do to London if I were mayor’.
Fortunately for Londoners politics may be dead in 6 months time and we will be living with Mob rule which is much simpler to analyse and much cheaper to run!!