Layer 27 Boris

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After yesterday’s marathon effort I felt I might just coast along today, out of sight and out of mind. Instead it’s been another full-on day. Too much to do and think about.

So Boris it is then. Boris means ‘small’ in Russian. Boris Karloff was known for his roles in horror films. According to my Dictionary of Firsts Names ‘Boris Johnson is an English journalist‘. Not any more he isn’t. Little Boris has just gone up in the world, at least in terms of power. Probably he’s still around about the very same level in terms of the public’s general perception of journalists and politicians as all being scumbags who should get a proper job.

Mr Mayor. My Mayor. So now we get to find out just what we can do with a Boris, and what a Boris can really do for us, apart from add to the gaiety and hilarity of the nation.

To his lasting credit Livingston has been gracious in defeat. He said he accepts full responsibility for his defeat. Very decent of him, but it’s by no means the whole story.

Ken may be his own worst enemy, but New Labour comes a very close second. New Labour really sucks.

New Labour is the enemy of the working classes. New Labour killed the Labour Party.
What occurs to me now is that New Labour is in the same position that the Tory party found itself in by 1997. By the end of the last Tory period of domination they were seen as the party of clapped out old bastards - sleazy, self-absorbed, out of touch, hopeless, good for nothing and well deserving of being booted out on their arses. Labour were then the party of young, fresh, intelligent and decent young politicos. Leaving aside the Mandelsons, Prescotts, etc.

Now it’s New Labour (“We’ll govern as New Labour” - Oh will you now?) that’s seen as clapped out, tarnished, sleazy, self-absorbed, out of touch, incompetent, hopeless and good for nothing, with the Tories being the ones who are young, fresh, intelligent and decent. Even shagger Boris, it seems. Funny small Boris, with his mad hair, running around like a mad hare, tossing basketballs, making us all cringe and laugh in equal measure.

New Labour, with Blair, and now Brown, at the helm turned out to be Thatcherism Lite, whose principal goals were keeping the Sun and Mail happy, not alienating floating voters, and being better at managing the economy than the Tories. Some vision. What a way to waste two successive landslide victories, to waste two brilliant opportunities to change perceptions as to what politics can be about, and convert more of the floating turds to progressive policies, and the notion of social justice.

Instead we’ve had more and more privatisations, an insane culture of target-setting in the public services and the professions, failure to tax properly the super-rich, let alone the merely stinkingly rich, allowing the gap to widen between the rich and the poor, sex scandals, bulimia, IRAQ, etc, etc. All of these things were avoidable. They can’t blame anyone else.

So farewell, then, Ken. You gave us the congestion zone, bendy busses and the 2012 Olympics, all of which are hated by large swathes of the population.