Evening Standard admits BoJo an idiot…(Surely something wrong?)
The Evening Standard apparently knows Boris will be a poor choice as mayor. Floating through yesterday’s posts on Stop Boris, I noticed this. Observe their attacks, right from the start on BoJo’s manifesto. On his Tube policies:
Nothing infuriates the unions more than a suggestion of a no-strike deal. There is no way Aslef and the RMT would agree - it will immediately lead to a strike. On air conditioning, he is restating what is already being done. Work on subsurface lines starts next year while aircon on deep-level lines is beset with technical problems. Has he grasped the detail of the Metronet contracts?
Pretty damning stuff, that. How about the C-Charge?
Utility fines is good vote catcher but difficult in practice. Not enough detail on “reform” of C-charge, although a consultation on the Western extension and rephasing lights would be welcome. Annoyed the green lobby by refusing to bring in £25 charge for gas-guzzlers.
Slightly less cutting, but still negative. Even crime, Boris’ headline (lack-of-decent) policy, comes in for criticism:
Advocating the use of hand-held weapon scanners could hark back to the days of stop and search. His idea for New York-style crime maps could ghettoise areas blighted by crime.
All in all, it doesn’t look good for Boris here. He comes in for some 17 jabs throughout the piece. Compare this with their assessment of Livingstone’s manifesto. Even with their standard (hah…) hostility, they find it hard to pick major holes in him. The most common description is, “realistic” and “practical” if “limited.”
The ES knows BoJo is a distinctly inferior candidate.
And yet they continue to support him. If one were looking for evidence of how much the ES hates Ken, here would be a good place to look: so desperate are they for him to die (painfully, I suspect) that they’ll support a man they know to be a confirmed idiot.
I’ll leave you with Stop Boris’ conclusion on the matter, which puts it rather well:
Of course, given how little is left in his manifesto that the Standard haven’t exposed as fundamentally or seriously flawed in this article, one has to wonder why on earth they’re so keen to get him elected as Mayor. Nothing to do with a petty squabble with a certain incumbent, is it? As it happens, Ken’s manifesto comes off comparatively well under their scrutiny. (They even admit his crime reduction target is “realistic” and that “latest figures show crime fell by six per cent last year”!) No wonder they’re trying to distract voters from the actual issues in their more high-profile day-to-day election coverage!
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