Boris says awesome things...

It’s almost sixty years to the day since Winston Churchill won the General Election to become the Prime Minister for the second time. And, at a dinner this week to celebrate the life of the great leader, Boris was forced to defend himself against one of the most preposterous attacks seen in politics in recent years.

Liam Byrne, the Shadow Cabinet minister, has accused Bozza of being a ‘part time Mayor’ because Johnson’s new book is published next week. The Evening Standard reports ‘that The Mayor’s latest book, Johnson’s Life of London: The People Who Made the City that Made the World, is released on November 3. Mr Byrne yesterday told the Standard that it is “truly astonishing” that he “can find the time to write a book when he was elected to run London”.’

How dare the Mayor do something else other than Mayoring now he has been elected? I bet Liam Byrne has cooked himself some dinner since becoming an MP. What’s that all about? Is he a ‘part time politician’ because he spends part of his time doing something other than MP-ing?

Idiot.

In a speech at the Churchillian Award Dinner, Boris said: “If some Lefty, snivelling opponent tells you that you can’t combine writing and politics you can remind them that Churchill wrote journalism throughout his career.

“And then he continued, I discovered the other day, to write the history of the English speaking peoples – more than 20,000 words of it – after Hitler had invaded Poland and when he was in charge of the entire British Navy.”

Perhaps next time Liam Byrne is tending his garden, spending time with his children or watching some football on the telly he should consider his words and go and do something for his constituents instead….

According to the Hackney Citizen, there are around 400 more betting shops in London than there were a decade ago.  Now, Boris is on the case, calling for tighter restrictions to prevent this proliferation of bookies.

According to Bingo Supermarket News (there’s a publication for a ‘missing words’ round on Have I Got News For You? if ever there was one), ‘the Mayor has suggested that the large number of betting shops on high streets can “negatively impact on the vitality and viability of town centres and the quality of life of those living nearby”.’

Boris is echoing a call made by his Mayoral rival, Ken Livingstone, last year. The Mayor wants operators to be required to gain approval for each site and he has written to the government cat, Mr Pickles, asking that the national planning laws be reviewed.

Bozza said: “I recognise that betting shops have an important role to play in our culture and provide entertainment to many people. But there is a balance to be struck between having betting shops as a part of the high street retail mix and the negative impact they can have on shoppers and visitors when they start to dominate.

“Requiring operators to obtain planning permission seems a sensible way to achieve the checks and balances needed to ensure our towns remain attractive places to visit, shop and spend time in.”

You can’t help but admire someone who backs a cause likely to bite them squarely on the bottom at a later date, can you?

This week, Boris has played the role of a turkey voting for Christmas by backing the editor of the Daily Mail’s view that press restriction should be kept to a minimum. Paul Dacre, the editor of that turgid little rag fine, upstanding newspaper, made a stirring speech last week in which he questioned the motives of David Cameron and other politicians for wanting to tighten rules on press reporting.

‘Am I alone,’ he said, ‘in detecting the rank smells of hypocrisy and revenge in the political class’s current moral indignation over a British Press that dared to expose their greed and corruption.’

And now, Boris has sided with Dacre, which is perhaps an odd stance for a man whose private life has been subject to a fair bit of press intrusion over the years….

According to the Daily Mail, ‘Boris Johnson made a passionate defence of press freedom…saying the right of newspapers to say ‘very rude things’ about public figures has protected democracy.

‘But the Mayor insisted that the media has a right to upset public figures because openness encourages honesty and stamps out corruption in public life.

‘Speaking at a Westminster lunch, he said: ‘People looking at London see a society that is as honest as anywhere in the world – thanks very largely to the very rude things the media says about so many people.’

Gulp. He’d better behave himself in future, we think….

Bozza’s been at the Conservative Party Conference this week and the general consensus was that he’d won the ‘funniest speech’ award in a competition with, er, one entrant.

In a performance that would make Jimmy Carr quake in his boots, Boris cracked funny after funny. After pointing out that the wheels for London’s new rolling stock are being made in a factory in Manchester, Bozza said: “So I say to my friends in the Treasury, not all of whom I see here – I see Dave here – F. D. Roosevelt had the new deal, I give you the wheel deal.”

Wheel deal! Ha ha ha ha.

And, after the Mayor had paid tribute to ‘the broom brigade of Clapham’ who cleared up after the riots, he could not resist adding: “That’s right. Clap ‘em.”

Clapham! Clap ‘em! You see what he did, there?

Boris also made a guest appearance at the Tory Treasurer’s party on Monday night. According to City AM, the Prime Minister greeted Bozza with ‘a huge hug and a firm arm clasp, to cheers from the crowd’. The Mayor joked: “The last time we gripped each other as tightly as this, people thought this was the first civil partnership in the Conservative Party.”

*splits sides with laughter*

Interestingly, the Mayor’s increasing confidence and appeal resulted in this assessment from the Daily Telegraph. “We blow the gaff on Boris: he is in danger of losing his hard-won reputation for being gaffe-prone… “

For a couple of weeks in 2012, the eyes of the world are going to be on London. Billions of people will watch the Olympic Games and hundreds of thousands of competitors and visitors will descend on the capital to see the world’s greatest sporting event. And, of course, they are likely to want to share their experiences, pictures and videos with loved ones.

Problem: London’s mobile phone network might creak under the pressure.

Boris claims he’s been worried about this for a couple of years. He said: “We are doing a huge amount of work to ensure there is enough coverage. But we have got to be realistic, in the men’s 100m final people want to download huge quantities of data which will put a massive strain on the networks. We are looking to install enough masts and have enough physical infrastructure and coverage for the huge demands, I am confident we will crack it.”

As well as people not being able to share video footage of men’s weightlifting from their iPad (probably just as well) mobile phone blackouts could, according to the Telegraph, cause operational problems. This is because ‘transport operators, Olympic Games volunteers and staff and security officers will use smart phones to communicate to then relay important security and travel updates to the public.’

And, Transport for London is also about to roll out a text message travel update scheme. Apparently, it will simply say “your bus will arrive before this text message does.”

We’ve all tried to be fashion leaders in our time. Jerry, an ex-colleague at Boriswatch HQ, once turned up for work wearing a sarong and Ugg boots which led to a short period where everyone in the office followed suit and turned up looking like they’d just rolled out of bed.

Now, it would be cruel to say that the Mayor is a man that spends a lot of his time looking like he has just rolled out of bed – the hair is actually carefully coiffured to look like a mad scientist – but he is an unlikely leader for London Fashion Week.

The Independent reports that ‘surrounded by some of the British Fashion Council’s “ambassadors”, among whom were former models Erin O’Connor and Laura Bailey, he said it was the most glamorous audience he had ever addressed, and joked about rescuing funding for the event from those in the Treasury who wished to use it to bail out Greece.’

Sadly, though, the Mayor may not really have the fashion lingo well and truly off pat. When a journalist asked “What are you wearing, Boris?” as he opened the event, the Mayor replied “A suit?”

At the London Fashion Week launch, Boris addressed a glamorous audience. “The fashion industry employs 80,000 people in London and gives £1bn to the economy every year. My message is serious and simple: if London fashion businesses can help and we can find the public funds … we can solve youth unemployment and lengthen our lead over the rest of the world.”