Ken vs. Boris: It's So On

I guess maybe some of those conductors for the Routemasters that are gonna cost £8 million can just hang around preventing alcohol consumption on the tube until they're built

So fucked off about that :(

So you'll be able to buy as much beer as you like on the train coming to london (on which they sell beer) but take a can onto the tube and get...what...arrested? Chucked off the train?

Surely the problem is not people drinking but people already drunk? How's is he going to tackle that. This is a typical First Hundred Days headline grabbing initiative which will make no difference whatsoever to antisocial behaviour on the tubes.

Also I thought he was against nannying?

Possibly gonna spend the rest of May enjoying my last three weeks of legal tube drinking by getting hammered on every single journey and bellowing about how everyone who voted for this prick deserves to die

i'm getting a hipflask for my birthday

so that cunt can take cocaine but i can't have a beer on the tube.

Under the GLA Act, the Mayor can appoint two political advisers without any scrutiny or need for advertising their posts. He can appoint a further 10 senior aides as long as their jobs are at least nominally put out for open competition. Under Ken, this formality was observed but everyone knew that his senior "Policy Directors" (Director of Economic Policy, Director or Housing etc) - all of whom were earning £120k-plus salaries - were his loyal confidants.

Given Boris's campaign pledge to end the "cronyism" and "secrecy" at City Hall, and publish on the internet as much information "from Day One" of his mayoralty, it was disappointing to find today that no one seemed to know what salaries the new deputies are on. It is, as Boris, would say, OUR money.

http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2008/05/all-change-at-c.html

it's political correctness gone mad xpost

Maybe we should have another thread - the Ken bit seems a bit redundant (not to mention depressing)?

And so we shall have one:

The Brave New Dawn of Boris the Wondermayor

Ken Livingstone turns radio host on LBC

LONDON - Red Ken is turning shock jock as the former London mayor joins the capital's talk station LBC.

Livingstone will initially stand in for the 1pm-4pm weekday host Jeni Barnett, who will be away on holiday, from June 30 to July 4. He will then take charge of his own regular show, details of which are to yet to be confirmed.

The man who was ousted by Tory Boris Johnson will now have a platform to discuss his successor as well as issues such as transport, housing and crime.

Livingstone promised he would be the "perfect afternoon antidote" to LBC's breakfast host Nick Ferrari, who at one time considered running for mayor.

The hiring will help LBC grab headlines and most likely more listeners at a time when its popularity is already rising. The latest radio audience figures show its share of listening in London was up from 3.5% to 4.5% in one quarter.

Jonathan Richards, programme director at LBC, said: "Love him or hate him, Ken Livingstone is never boring."

Livingstone's move follows Boris Johnson's return to writing his weekly Daily Telegraph column, for which he reportedly earns £250,000 per year.

I'm sure he'll be as big a success on radio as his fellow clapped out 80s Trots Hatton and Galloway.

He's also planning ahead:

http://davehill.typepad.com/london3ms/2008/05/comeback-ken.html

"Only three weeks into his Mayoralty Boris Johnson's letter to Hazel Blears calling for no Mayor to be allowed to serve more than two terms shows he believes his administration is going to fail and he is manoeuvring to try to undemocratically prevent Ken Livingstone running against him in 2012.

This assessment by Boris Johnson is entirely realistic. After only three weeks it is already evident his administration is a going to be a shambles - it has abandoned his flagship pledge to introduce a new Routemaster, it has been forced to abandon as illegal its attempt to employ Sir Simon Milton as the planning adviser, it has moved to scrap half yearly taxi safety testing and, in what will be the first of many steps alienating environmentalists, it has backed an energy guzzling desalination plant for Thames Water rather than keep up the pressure for them to stem to (sic) vast loss of water from its antiquated pipe network.

In these circumstances it should come as no surprise that one of Johnson's first concerns is to try to undemocratically block Ken Livingstone from unseating him in 2012."

Forget it, Ken

He's already made one comeback - why couldn't he make another?

He could but it wouldn't work

He'll be capitalising on the current pro-Labour mood in the country that looks set to extent well into the honeymoon period of the next government.

should just stand as an independent again.

http://www.vinyltap.co.uk/gallery/ro/royhawaocltc4975313617122050.jpg

i wouldn't vote for him again - 8 years is probably enough and it's a sad state if no-one can be found who could topple Boris next time (i'm sure he'll still get re-elected somehow tho)

I, of course, would vote for him again.

I agree with Blueski that BJ will win again, and find it hard to believe that D Hill really believes that BJ will be on a loser in 2012. Is D Hill kidding?

There was a crap Guardian article mentioning various other candidates to stand in 2012; it even mentioned Arsene Wenger.

I would vote for the Labour ticket of Jose Mourinho with deputy mayor Steady Mike to crunch numbers.

Mourinho more likely to be the BNP candidate surely?

I don't know that BJ is going to stand in the next one. Won't Cameron PM want him in the cabinet? Or more to the point won't BJ want to be in the cabinet? He's always talked about as ambitious. Future foreign secretary I should think.

Surely the point of the Mayor of London role is to shunt ambitious liabilities off to the side and keep them away from the cabinet?

Indeed, I imagine Cameron wants BJ as far away from the cabinet as possible

See also former Health Secretary Frank Dobson, who got selected as the Labour candidate in 2000, got beaten by Ken and was never let near the Cabinet again.

Surely the point of the Mayor of London role is to shunt ambitious liabilities off to the side and keep them away from the cabinet?

-- Matt DC, Tuesday, 20 May 2008 14:13 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

So Gordon Brown for mayoral candidate in 2012?

Does Kirkcaldy have a mayor?

Oh yes, I am sure you are right. But this is not what Boris wants (or so I have been imformed). He sees himself front and centre in the next election and also sees himself as part of the bandwagon that really got rolling after his election. He doesn;t see himself as a liability at all anymore (if he ever did).

Somehow I don't think David Cameron is planning on having someone more popular than David Cameron in his cabinet

Lee McQueen?

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2376/2508700274_ccea02b58e_o.jpg

That picture is shocking.

That picture is not allowed to appear in any publication now, apparently. The photographer has mysteriously forbidden it.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/why-kens-still-seeing-red-907647.html

“I told him to his face, ‘You’ve been responsible for one person’s death, stay away from my family. Get off my doorstep’.”

What a charmer, really miss him already.

hi nrq

holla

Maybe he should have told ping pong jokes, bruv??

fucking labour party hack rewriting history is what this is: it was ken's great mates campbell and blair wot killed the doctor, not gilligan.

livingstone can't compete with gilligan when it comes to mud-slinging i guess. he said some good stuff elsewhere in that article tho (dunno if anyone noticed).

Instead there are too many columnists. “There are people who never did anything and I’m not terribly interested in their opinions. I don’t want to pick out anybody but Catherine Bennett (of The Observer)would be a good start. Why is anyone interested in her opinions? Has she written great literature, produced great art work, run a major corporation, been elected to office, or is she just paid to produce bile?” he moans. “You might as well pop into the local pub and say ‘What’s your opinion?’ It’s equally valid.”

Reminds me of someone.

haws, way to pick one of the leftier hacks out there.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23915523-ken-livingstone-under-fire-over-his-iranian-tv-role.do

Staggering poor judgement on Ken's part, but that Evening Standard article conveniently fails to mention the prominent ES journalist and famous anti-Ken campaigner who is also in the pay of the exact same Iranian TV channel.

Oh yes. I lolled.

he should keep the fuck away from those arseholes.

yes i noticed his absence from the byline but then he's not running for mayor

book reviews must be a hoot

You don't think it's slightly hypocritical of the Standard to act like this is the worst thing in the world when one of their star journalists has been employed by the exact same Iranian propaganda network in an even more prominent capacity?

I get that there are skewed moral universes involved when you're owned by a former KGB agent but still...

I think it is the skewed moral universe of being a former Associated paper.