So, it looks like Boris is going to win.....

[JeremyVile]

Boris Johnson.
How the feck did that happen??

Hoping the BBC are just joshing with us...

Excellent post foxinsocks.
I agree completely.

swc - as far as I am concerned, it isn't what BJ IS it's what he says (and will do) that is threatening to diversity.

Comments re his N ireland talks fair enough if that's your stand - but he was upfront about it.

New Statesman on his track record:

"Boris Johnson is a dishonest, incompetent clown, whose life has been a story of contemptuous, self-serving privilege.

He is a man who has lost a number of jobs for lying: he was sacked from The Times for making up a quotation from his godfather, the Oxford historian Colin Lucas, and lost his front-bench role, under Michael Howard, for lying about his four-year extra-marital affair with his fellow toff journalist, Petronella Wyatt. (For men like Johnson, with friends in high places, serial sackings are no bar to advancement.)

As well as being a famous liar, Johnson has skirted the borders of criminality when it has suited his interests or those of his foul, larcenous and over-privileged friends. In 1990 he agreed to give the home address of journalist Stuart Collier to Darius Guppy, a narcissistic Old Etonian convicted fraudster, who wanted to have Collier beaten up in revenge for some perceived slight. On being asked how badly Collier would be beaten up, Guppy informed Johnson that it would involve ?a couple of black eyes, a cracked rib ? or something like that?.

It is beyond satire that the man campaigning for the mayoralty of London by stoking up fear of violent crime should once himself have been involved in the attempted commission of an instance of GBH. Despite his new found enthusiasm for the Metropolitan police, did he alert the authorities to Guppy?s intentions? No."

I'm interested that Boris' membership of the Bullingdon keeps coming up - does anyone actually have any experience of the Bullingdon, or are you just repeating what you've read in the papers?

As far as I remember from university, these were just a group of boys with an inflated sense of their own importance who liked to get drunk and break windows (which damage was always paid for in full afterwards!)

It's not like they were some secret evil society, hell bent on taking over the world. For God's sake, Ruth Kelly is a member of Opus Dei, which I find much more disturbing!

isnt it odd tho that the best people for the top jobs in anorganisation all come from the same tiny place out of all the possible diverse backgrounds in the uk they could come from

I mean he wasn't meeting them secretly and lying about it.

Boris Johnson comes out with a sucession of comments ranging from downright racist to tactless.

the problem being of course that it isnt odd

Oxford isn't that small.

I went there. So did loads of other MNers.

And what on earth is Boris Johnson proposing to do that will threaten diversity?

well apart from the fact that he has no respect for black people, gay people or Muslims, I'm sure he will make a GREAT leader of a diverse population of a city such as London

well mn isnt really that diverse either is it

Did ken 'champion the IRA'? or did he allow voices to be heard / people to speak?

PennyBenjamin "
As far as I remember from university, these were just a group of boys with an inflated sense of their own importance who liked to get drunk and break windows (which damage was always paid for in full afterwards!)"

If you can't see what's repulsive to many people in that sentence, then sheesh!

Actually, I will tell you because I'm not patient enough to see if you work it out.

The destruction of the property of other people - particularly that of one's social 'inferiors' - is NOT OKAY AS LONG AS YOU PAY FOR IT!!

In fact, I'd go so far as to say I find it more morally repulsive if one has done so with the the confident intention of being able to pay one's way out of trouble, than not.

Grotesque.

Anyway if Ken is not re elected he will have to think about how he lost the election. Did he alienate Londoners with his policies? Sounds like the congestion charge westwards was a failure and the constant increases in Council Tax and rates must go against him.
I think the election was his to lose as generally he is a pretty popular politician.

As an ex Londoner I will be ashaammeed id Boris gets it
Ashammmeedd

I seem to remember the Bullingdon was universally loathed among the sort of people I hung out with, although admittedly I'm not sure Boris remembers me.

And whereas I would agree that the 'watermelon smile' quote is probaby a parody (probably...) why would the other stuff be? Or his views on Civil Partnership?

I'm not wildly supporting ken - I think he is a power-mad unpleasant man. But I think what he has done for London has often flown in the teeth of popular opinion (bringing in the CC) and been good. Public Transport has been improved inestimably, all sorts of general 'clean-ups'.

I felt grubby voting for him.

But Boris hasn't even mooted any actual policies except shallow reactionary (anti-bendy bus) ones and platitudes.

Onebatmother - my point is not to defend the breaking of other people's property, it is to point out that this behaviour is no different than what a large proportion of people do at university, or indeed outside university, when they are young. And then people grow up.

And who said they were breaking the property of their "social inferiors"? What a ridiculous thing to say.

My point is that this isn't some evil top toff organisation, it's just a group of boys getting together to get drunk.

I was asking a question, actually swc.

I live in West London and support the congestion charge. I think this was a brave and necessary move by Ken.
But then we don't have a car and only use public transport to get around. Don't really understand why you need a car if you live in central London
to be honest. I think the transport system in London is fantastic.

imo, it's a group of evil top toff boys who will go on in later life to be CEO of evil top toff organization.

But most of us didn't smash things.

(Admittedly I did once throw up in the front quad of one of the More Ancient Colleges (having been out for dinner with no less than Evan Davies, ahem) but I was on the way to my NonViolent Direct Action Group at the time.)