“London will bring in 2010 with a bang, a glittering explosion across the midnight sky. We want to show the world that we are looking forward to the future with optimism.”
On the 10th anniversary of the London Eye, Bozza bigs up the city’s annual New Year celebrations. Wrap up warm, though, eh?
Happy New Year.
Nice to see that the Mayor’s bizarre observations are making news around the world.
Bozza appeared on The Toronto Star’s radar and this piece of wisdom was included in their review of 2009:
“At the moment I am like some underwater sea creature, a gigantic coelenterate, sucking everything in, and later on I am going to start expelling. It’s going to take me some time to come up with a complete theory of urban civilization but I’m sure I will.”
Ahem.
Merry Christmas from all of us here at Boriswatch Towers.
We’re off to drink some sherry, stuff our face with mince pies and watch When Boris Met Dave (again) on E4.
Many compliments of the season to you all.
This week has seen the official announcement that ‘Routemaster II’ buses will return to the streets of London in time for the 2012 Olympic Games.
Due to be introduced into service in 2011, the new bus will have an open platform at one of its three entrances, with the platform able to be closed off at certain times, such as at night. There will be two staircases and the bus will incorporate the latest hybrid technology to make it 40% more fuel efficient. It will be able to carry 87 passengers.
Bozza said, “Londoners have waited with stoic patience as work has continued behind the scenes to select the manufacturer to make the 21st century Routemaster a reality. The decision has now been made and we can look forward to a new icon of London that not only returns to the capital the joy of the open platform, but also utilises the latest state-of-the art green technology, slashing pollution and fuel consumption.”
The original Routemaster buses were introduced to London in 1956 and withdrawn in 1005, replaced by ‘bendy buses’ which BoJo has called the ‘writhing whales of the road’.
Bozza continued, “The countdown is now well and truly on as Wrightbus work 19 to the dozen to deliver Londoners their new bus in 2011, ahead of the world descending on the city for the 2012 Games.”
Another superb soundbite from Bozza at the C-List Climate Change For Important-Ish People Who Aren’t Leaders Of Their Country Committee Meeting in an Ibis hotel in Copenhagen.
“We are replicating too fast, hurtling towards nine billion souls on the planet like multiplying bacteria……”
…..said the father of four. Ahem.
Boris has been in Copenhagen this week. Apparently, alongside the UN’s Climate Change Conference is a smaller ‘Climate Summit For Mayors’ – the Europa League to the UN’s Champions League, if you will.
Fourteen Mayors from leading world cities have been meeting in Denmark to discuss green initiatives for their cities. They have agreed on commitments to make their cities more electric vehicle friendly by forming the C40 Electric Vehicle Network (wouldn’t the C5 Electric Vehicle Network have been better, just for those of us who remember the 1980s?)
Four vehicle manufacturers including Nissan and Renault have also committed to the scheme.
The cities of Bogota, Buenos Aires, Chicago, Copenhagen, Delhi, Hong Kong, Houston, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Toronto, Sao Paulo, Seoul and Sydney have all signed up to the plan which aims to drive demand for electric vehicles as well as implementing the infrastructure necessary to run them.
Bozza said, “London has set the standard for the shift to mainstream urban electric vehicles use across the world. City leaders have raised the bar in responding to the challenge of climate change. By committing to adopt electric technology, we are using the collective clout of our procurement power and populations to mobilise global markets. The move to electric vehicles, which emit zero pollution on to our city streets, will have a massive impact on cutting carbon emissions whilst improving air quality and noise levels for our citizens.”
Whilst it won’t affect him directly, Boris is likely to be one of the Tories’ weapons for the forthcoming General Election. Reports suggest this may be held as early as March 2010 with Labour narrowing the Conservatives’ lead in the polls.
In an interview with the BBC, Bozza was careful not to sound over-confident, whilst seemingly having watched too much Star Wars over the weekend. “[I'm]…not going to say the election is a done deal… it is like a novel where the denouement has become obvious a little bit too early. I think the Labour government is almost completely discredited. In my view they have bogged it up in the most imperial, inter-galactic fashion. They have run up colossal sums of debt and have no credible way out of it.”
Bogged it up, eh? Crikey.
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London’s new cycle hire scheme goes into force next summer with four hundred cycle stations dotted around the capital, allowing Londoners the ability to make journeys between any of these stations by bike.
The charging structure for the scheme was announced this week and the reaction has been largely positive. The first half an hour of bike usage will be free, although anyone wishing to use a bike will have to pay an initial ‘access’ charge (£1 per day, £5 per week or £45 for the year).
“It is amazing how far your bike can take you in 30 minutes if you put in a bit of pedal power”, puffed Boris, “and to be able to do so free of charge on one of our fantastic new bikes is simply sensational value for money.”
The scheme is expected to increased the number of cycle journeys in London by 40,000 per day although safety campaigners point to the significant increase in cycle casualties since a similar scheme was introduced in Paris. Critics also point out that the scheme isn’t Oyster compatible and that there aren’t docking stations at the major railway stations.
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Bozza has had a rap on the knuckles this week ” as it appeared on the evidence presented that the mayor of London was using GLA resources in seeking to affect party political support”.
No, he didn’t take a fiver out of the kitty to save some “Vote Boris” stickers made. He actually used the official Mayoral Twitter account (do you think Dick Whittington had these problems? Perhaps he had a Twittington account?) for ‘party political reasons’ which, apparently, isn’t allowed.
BoJo tweeted: “The Sun has got his hat on, hip hip hip hip hooray” and linked to the Sun website in September after the newspaper came out in support of the Conservative Party.
The GLA complaints committee decided not to take the matter further and opted for a letter of guidance from City Hall’s deputy chief executive, Jeff Jacobs, to the mayor highlighting the clause that stipulates that “when using or authorising the use by others of the resources by your authority, ensure that such resources are not used improperly for political purposes [including party political]“.
It is unclear as to whether Bozza himself, or one of his Twitter associates (twits?) posted the message.
The Tories ‘privileged’ background refuses to go away amid speculation that Gordon Brown and the Labour Party are likely to wage a ‘class war’ in the run up to the next General Election.
Brown suggested last week that Conservative proposals for raising the threshold for inheritance tax to £1 million were “dreamed up on the playing fields of Eton”, an assertion which is increasingly riling senior Tories. Thirteen of the Shadow Cabinet were privately educated, a fact that is strangely absent from their biographies on the party’s website. Boris, of course, is a friend of Cameron’s from their Bullingdon Club days at Eton.
Labour’s plan is to portray the Conservatives as the party of the privileged few, linking their leader’s private school background to their plans to help an elite, wealthy minority rather than the average household. Whether it will work remains to be seen. This approach did not, of course, stop an old Etonian from becoming the Mayor of London, did it?
From Boris-Johnson.com
