To think people need to stop viewing Boris Johnson as a loveable buffoon?

[MoominMantra]

He's nasty and astute

He hangs around with horrible bigots who support eugenics, like Steve Bannon.

He cannot manage a day without having to publicly apologise for some dreadful remark he made.

He is even more likely to carry on heaping austerity on the sick and disabled than any other Tory leader.

When he was mayor he closed 10 fire stations in London.

He's dangerous and he doesn't give a fuck about anyone. I can't think of a worse proposition for PM.

Boris bikes for one!

Everything you’re attributing to Boris, basically.

Not true I’m afraid Zipee - Boris Bikes were nothing to do with Ken: www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2014/jun/23/boris-johnson-bikes-ken-livingstone

Everything you’re attributing to Boris, basically.

Can you give any actual examples?

Except the policy was enacted under Ken Livingstone, so of course, it was to do with him.

Zipee - did you read the link I posted above? Boris bikes were proposed by the Tories in 2007. Ken then committed to the idea but did no work to further the scheme - and was then succeeded by Boris as mayor, who did do the work and made it a reality. In what world can Boris bikes be attributed to Ken?

The whole project came into being about 4.months after Boris was elected, there is not time for him to have put aby of the project in place.

A letter in the guardian by a disgraced journalist and now head of a tory think tank does not truth make.

If that’s the case then fair enough. One thing Boris did do was scrap the god awful bendy buses.

The whole project came into being about 4.months after Boris was elected

Hang on - a quick google shows that Boris Bikes came into being in July 2010, over two years after Boris was elected. So your claim that it was four months after he became mayor isn’t true.

Actually a quick google shows your link is incorrect, plans announced 2007
, by Livingstone, with the whole set up with hpw it would operate with time.linea.for implementation announced feb 2008, under Livingstone. So which bit was Boris responsible for other than just going along with the plans?

My current theory is that the best possible outcome is that Boris is elected leader, there's then an immediate General Election, and the conservatives lose. At least that way we'd be done with all the 'Boris for PM' treadmill once and for all.

If he doesn't get the leadership position this time then he'll be back again for another try next time.

Of course where this all falls apart is that I'm not sure even now that the Conservatives would lose because the opposition is so dire.

Noodle I think in that scenario The Brexit Party do very well, which seems like an appalling prospect to me.

Zipee - again what you’re saying is just factually incorrect. Ken announced the scheme in February 2008 - link here:

www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/feb/09/transport.world1

He then left office three months later and the scheme was implemented in July 2010.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santander_Cycles

The idea announced in 2007, the plans announced with how it would happen in 2008.

Which bit of it was commissioned under Boris or the tories?

I was absolutely on the money. You weren't

@Zipee are you drunk?

“In February 2008, plans for the London cycle hire scheme were officially unveiled by Livingstone.”

He then had a whole three months to work on it before Boris took over as mayor. Boris then worked on it for over two years and it was implemented in July 2010.

Did you read the wikipedia link?

The original announcement was in 2007, the plans drawn up and presented in feb 2008?

Which bit of Boris administration was involved ?

Presumably the bit of his administration that spent over two years implementing it?

Anyway, according to the Lib Dems it was actually their idea, back in 2001:

www.libdemvoice.org/londons-bike-hire-scheme-20713.html

It seems everyone wants a slice of the pie...

Doesn't matter whose idea it was, who commissioned it?

The plans were completed under Ken.

Of course they weren’t! The bikes were introduced two years after Boris came in as mayor. He spent more time working on the scheme than Ken did. Unless Ken came up with the idea in early 2006?

Or the scheme was already researched and planned before he took office. Which looking at the facts seems to be the case.

They planned the entire scheme in less than a year? I find that very hard to believe - and I haven’t seen any evidence from you to back that up. It’s also a ridiculous notion to suggest that Boris’s team had no input whatsoever into the scheme between May 2008 (when he was elected) and July 2010 (when the scheme was implemented).

By the way, I’m not even a fan of Boris - I just get fed up with people misrepresenting the facts to make it seem like Labour/Sadiq are some sort of demigods while the Tories are pure evil. They’ve both made good decisions and they’ve both made bad decisions.

Except the evidence from the wikipedia link that shoes that the plans were drawn up following extensive consultations?

TFL managed the implementation of it, not the mayor's office.

I can’t see anything in the Wikipedia link that states that. I don’t believe the whole thing was planned, done and dusted before Boris took office unless you can show evidence that this was the case.