Go Boris! (Sort of)

In order to celebrate, if celebrate is indeed the right word, the beginning of the campaign to unseat that fucking bastard Red Ken… sorry, sorry, the campaign for London Mayor, the Moai and I went to see young Boris speak at a dinner on Tuesday. The scene was slightly surreal – we were clearly the youngest people at the dinner, and probably by between 10 and 20 years. The rules of the club where we ate required gentlemen to wear jackets on all times, except in June, July and August, or when the club allowed them to by putting up notices saying the temperature has risen above 24 degrees. However, a notice informed me that gentlemen were no longer required to wear ties at all time in the public areas of the club, which would have been a ground breaking development had this been the 1920’s.

Anyway, to Boris, and I’ll hand you over to the Moai – a self described recovering socialist - for his verdict on the uber Tory Boris:

"As The Nameless One says, he and I went to a dinner engagement two days ago that marked the beginning of Boris' formal assault on the mayoralty. So, how convinced were we? Well, even the pre-scripted parts of his speech were not utterly dull, and the description of the execrable Londoner as 'Pyongyang style' went down very well, indicating that his minders (who notable by their presence) have not made the fatal mistake of de-Borising Boris. However, in open questioning, he wobbled. He appears to believe that all of the changes he proposes can be funded by slashing Ken's admittedly enormous marketing budget, and, when asked a question on schools policy and underachievement, he was obviously unprepared. Whether or not the Mayor has any control over schools is irrelevant; when required to go off script, he didn't look convincing, which may be a problem in open hustings. The Moai verdict: entertaining, but not - yet - fully convincing."

See, the interesting thing is I felt it worked the other way round. I found Boris’s speech boring, light on policy, and delivered far too fast and with more than a hint of nerves. When it came to the questioning, I felt he came into his own. He didn’t have all the answers, and was clearly developing some policy ideas on the hoof, but he seemed to build up a real rapport with his (albeit quite friendly) audience and also seemed to relish the chance to go off script and think on his feet. He came across as far more likeable than that poisonous little twerp that he is fighting against. And whilst Red Ken clearly sees going for Boris’s jugular is the way forward, Boris slipped in a couple of jibes against Red Ken without really mentioning the man’s name. He seems to be using the classic politician’s trick of not mentioning his opponent’s name for fear of giving that opponent free publicity.

My verdict? Well, he came across ok, but I don’t think anyone would expect anything less from Bozzer. He didn’t really give me a reason to vote for him. My vote is most likely to go to Bozzer simply because he is not that nasty, anti-Semitic, crony loving pseudo-Marxist Ken Livingstone. Equally, he is not Brian Paddick – a man who seems to be even more lost in his own navel than your standard Lib Dem. In that respect, Boris is the perfect candidate to represent modern politics – and in particular the modern Tories. You don’t vote for him, but rather by supporting him you are not voting for any of his opponents. It is a shame he didn’t have more to offer, and I hope if he does win the race, then he has an agenda ready and waiting to go. The last thing we need is another politician popular with the media who wins an election – then sits on his hands, wondering what to do.