Boris says awesome things...

“Toot!”

That’s the sound of the party horns being blown at Boriswatch HQ where our annual Christmas party has just entered the seventh hour.  Our legal advisor has already photocopied both buttocks (that’s what a litre of Harvey’s Bristol Cream will do, kids) whilst the nice lady who answers the telephones is chasing guests around the building wearing a mistletoe hat.

Anyway, to soundtrack our Christmas party this year we decided to put on the new album by MC Bozza J.  Having read a news story in This Is London about the Mayor and ‘rapping’ we rushed out to find this monumental chart release.

“My name is Bozza J/and I’m doing it for the city
That’s why I laid down this busting London ditty
I’m the man who introduced the thousands of bikes
But couldn’t stop the snow and the rubbish Tube strikes
I like hanging out of Facebook/why don’t you come and friend me
Just make sure you come to call/on a bus that isn’t bendy.”

[Er, I'm sorry to step in. I think our main writer has had one too many glasses of the nice Tawny Port that I brought in from home. I do apologise. What this article meant to consider was Boris' views on Christmas wrapping. "Christmas provides a cracking opportunity to recycle a host of items rather than overload London's waste bins", the Mayor commented this week. I'll send him home now and hopefully you'll see an improvement in the New Year.

Merry Christmas! - Boriswatch Ed]

We all know that Boris is a powerful man, and there are lots of things that full under his jurisdiction. However, one thing that (at least last time we checked) that he didn’t have control over was ‘the weather’. However, despite Boris not being directly responsible for the snowfall that has affected London over the last few days, that didn’t stop people having a pop.

This picture was published by the Daily Telegraph to show the horrific state of London’s Underground network just a few hours after Bozza had tweeted: “Vast amount of snow but tube and buses coping well. London open for Christmas shopping.â€?

(London’s Tube not coping all that well, it appears).

In addition, readers of the London Daily News also put the boot in over the snow. “I have not heard a word from our Mayor, he is a disgrace, the councils have failed again to grit and clear roads, why am I paying so much Council Tax if when I need help from council they are not there,” said Terry Donnelly of Kilburn. Navin Patel from Bounds Green commented: “I am so annoyed that we have failed again as London to keep the city moving, someone needs to get the boot, these jokers at City Hall or full of bull!”

70% of the newspaper’s readers reported that they were unsatisfied with the way in which London councils had responded to the snow. However, Bozza was defiant. “500 tonnes of grit scattered overnight. Challenging conditions here but doing our best to keep the city moving,” said the Mayor on Sunday (presumably ‘challenging conditions’ alludes to the snow and not the public response to the Council’s apparent lack of action….)

Snow-Bo, taken outside City Hall

It’s well documented that Britain doesn’t cope very well in the snow.  Whilst countries that experience a lot of the stuff keep their trains and buses running and their airports open, the UK closes down at the mere whiff of a bit of the white stuff.

And, to be fair, it’s more than a bit annoying.  Especially when the foreign newspapers are poking fun at us.  The New York Times has this week properly put the boot in with its barely concealed sarcasm. “To put it all into perspective, during last weekend’s snowstorm, a quick but violent upheaval, just two to four inches fell in London. But it was enough to disrupt transportation for the rest of the weekend,” cried the newspaper, adding: “There is something uniquely miserable about Britain in the grip of poor weather. Because its winters are usually mild, it is ill prepared for all but the slightest dusting of snow.”

Hmm. They’re right, aren’t they?

To be fair to the Mayor, he has also been pretty upset about the upheaval that a little bit of snow has caused, particularly at Heathrow where tens of thousands of Christmas travellers were stranded. As the New York Times reported: “An exasperated Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, told reporters on Monday: “It can’t be beyond the wit of man, surely, to find the shovels, the diggers, the snow ploughs or whatever it takes to clear the snow out from under the planes.â€?”

He does have a point, doesn’t he? How can one of the world’s busiest airports grind to a complete standstill when we have a ‘bit of snow’? (It’s not like it hasn’t snowed before is it. Like, er, LAST YEAR for example).

Bozza also called for a ‘Herculean effort’ by BAA, which operates Heathrow, and its contractors to get planes back in the air. I tell you what, though – it doesn’t need a Hercules, just a few blokes with a shovel and a bit of organisation. The Mayor is right – although there don’t appear to be much ‘wits’ in evidence at BAA this week…..

There are a right lot of pesky sorts on the internet.  Not content with posting amusing videos of cats dancing or exposing Nick Clegg for the two faced charlatan that he is, some anonymous overseas rotter has annoyingly bought one of Boris’ main campaigning websites.

In 2008, the leading place to show your love and support for Bozza online was at the website www.backboris.com.  It’s a pretty obvious choice of website name, as they go, and was used to decent effect as Bozza swept to Mayoral office.

Now though, with the 2012 Mayoral election on the horizon, someone in the Mayor’s office has forgotten (d’oh!) to renew the license for the website domain.

What this means is that an opportunistic type has nipped in and bought the domain name www.backboris.com.  And, rather irritatingly, it’s not someone obvious from the UK (a Mr. K. Livingstone would have been the obvious choice). The Guardian reports that “we would help locate the culprit, but it’s all very strange because whoever has acquired the site, and thus the potential to make a whole lot of mischief when [Boris] seeks re-election in 2012, has done so through a Belize-based registrar, who in the manner of all helpful tax havens offers anonymity. The company that hosts the site does so from the Caymans.”

Bozza’s team have been quick to sign up www.backboris2012.com but this oversight could lead to all sorts of mischievious and sneaky efforts to undermine the Mayor’s re-election campaign. We’re just gutted we didn’t think of the idea first…. or did we?

This is Bozza in 2006.  You will note that he’s at a demonstration with Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming, supporting the demo against hospital closures.

Clearly, Boris believed that attending a demo to support a cause he believed in was the right thing to do, and is, as we know, part of what makes Britain’s democracy one of the best in the world.

So, comments this week regarding the student demonstrations in London – according to The Sun, the Mayor “attacked parents who egg on their children to demonstrate’” – look to be somewhat at odds with the Mayor’s own past behaviour.

Clearly, the student protests got out of hand (for reasons that, depending on who you listen to, involve ‘students being idiots’ or ‘the police being idiots’) and there were unpleasant and unpalatable aspects to the day’s events. However, whilst Bozza may have been right that it was ‘an insult to democracy’ that the mob targeted statues of ‘the greatest protectors of freedom’, it surely can’t be right to criticise people for encouraging others to demonstrate democratically in a cause they believe strongly in?

Or, perhaps, Stanley Johnson should be chastised for encouraging his son to protest….?

We at Boriswatch Towers do, occasionally, treat ourselves to a meal out. Whilst the evening in Barnsley when we all had chicken soup, pie, mash, peas and gravy and a pint of local bitter for 99p ranks amongst our favourites, we do sometimes eat in London as well. Not often, mind; £12.50 for a cheese panini isn’t that affordable on Boriswatch wages.

Still, that’s a very reasonable lunch compared to the cost of the grub at Boris’ ‘breakfast club’, launched this week. Bozza played host to what City AM calls ‘a star studded launch’ of the charitable Mayor’s Fund for London at the newly refurbished Savoy this week. The ‘stars’ were listed as Sir Trevor Chinn (Chinny, to his mates), Jim O’Neill and Stanley Fink, none of whom anyone at Boriswatch HQ has heard of.

*rustles paper*

Oh, they appear to be bigwigs in the banking industry, not actual ‘stars’, as such. One of them is deputy chairman of something called the Man Group, which is either a euphemism or a performing theatre troupe, as far as we know.

Anyway, a poached egg and salmon brekkie at Boris’ posh do cost incoming Barclays chief exec Bob Diamond £50,000 – a bill which seems pretty pricey, even by London standards. We paid £9.99 for an ‘all you can eat seafood salad bar’ in Holborn once, but no-one’s ever tried to pass a £50k expenses bill past the boss, as far as we know.

As for the welcome prepared for his corporate friends yesterday, Boris was effusive, and tried to put on a brave face regarding London’s prospects as a business hub: “Selling London as a financial centre is slightly easier than selling Egypt as a tourist destination,â€? he pointed out. I bet you don’t pay £50,000 for an egg in Sharm-el-Sheikh, though….

So, the fallout from England’s abject failure to win the right to host the 2018 World Cup continues.

In one of the most spectacularly hilarious displays of sour grapes ever seen in international sport, Boris has withdrawn his offer of complimentary Dorchester Hotel suites for FIFA’s delegation during the 2012 Olympic Games.

The Daily Mail reports that: “FIFA president Mr Blatter and his team had been invited to stay in exclusive £1,000-a-night suites at the five-star hotel for more than a week during the Olympics….But London Mayor Mr Johnson, the official host of the Olympics, has withdrawn the offer to demonstrate his fury at the way FIFA threw out England’s bid.”

Bozza’s decision to ban Sepp Blatter and his FIFA colleagues from The Dorchester came after discussions with Lord Coe, chairman of the London Organising Committee for the 2012 Olympic Games. The LOC is the body in charge of booking hotels for VIPs at the Olympics at no cost to the guests.

Mr Blatter and the FIFA delegates are used to staying in the world’s top hotels as they travel around the world, and they regard The Dorchester as their London home, staying there during the summer.

Now they will have to settle for more modest accommodation. One official who witnessed the Zurich vote said: “As far as we are concerned they can stay in a B&B in the Old Kent Road and pay for it themselves to boot.”

So, despite £15 million and us sending all our most trusted generals into battle (and Gary Lineker) England’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup failed in humiliating fashion.

England secured just two of the twenty-two available votes with Russia ending up as the overwhelming choice to host the showpiece event in eight years time.

Boris, part of England’s 2018 bid team, was naturally downhearted. “There was a feeling that all the furore and the hoo-ha in the media had damaged our chances. From the voting process it is very hard to draw any other conclusion and that is very sad. It is bitterly disappointing.â€?

Indeed, the Mayor was more outspoken than the rest of England’s unsuccessful bid team when he called for fundamental changes to FIFA’s constitution. The Mayor said: “FIFA’s days in its current form are numbered. I hope today will make us examine the decision process.”

It’s still staggering that England weren’t awarded the 2018 World Cup. I mean, the UK only has the 2012 Olympics, the 2013 Rugby League World Cup, the 2014 Commonwealth Games, the 2015 Rugby World Cup and the 2019 Cricket World Cup to host….