Ken vs. Boris: It's So On

So the Standard is all "OMG BORIS SURGES INTO THE LEAD WE ARE SO CLOSE WE CAN TASTE THE PRECIOUSSSSSS" and Thelondonpaper says Ken has edged into the lead.

So basically, no one has a fucking clue who's going to win?

Also, that Paxman clip is astonishing, especially when he starts walking towards him.

Paxman in "fuck you, pay me" mode is still the funniest zingster on TV.

Incidentally, did anyone start a thread on Nigel Lawson's last Newsnight appearance/climate change denial/possible Alzheimer's? Paxman's opening salvo that night was spectacular.

i read the oddest review of his book by uber-leftist alex (or patrick) cockburn, saying lawson was a pussy for allowing the theory that co2 causes global warming. had no idea cockburn was that way inclined.

I think his scientific expertise is on a par with Lawson's.

The night of the Stern report, was that?

You're right, Paxman is heroic in scenarios like that BJ encounter - in a way he shouldn't have let him get away with it. Perhaps he didn't.

I think Ned T Rifle is right about London's dirty past.

i will be glad when it's over, whatever cunt wins.

I won't. I will be happy if KL wins, and unhappy if BK wins.

that is, BJ.

Think it was later than the actual release of the report, but Lawson was certainly very critical of it, without being able to articulate why. A lot of comparisons to the David Kelly affair tossed about.

Anyway, it's here on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74E2D6oNSHc

What makes me laugh the most is that Viz regularly run stories about authors with controversial theories who are clearly pathetic fantasists who've written their book after a heavy night in the pub. Lawson is v. reminiscent of this, especially his ray-gun idea.

Mathew d'Ancona, class traitor and defender of the downtrodden, backs Ken for Mayor.

Not really.

i clicked on it anyway because i like the song

No rickrolls from me I'm afraid - it's all too serious attempt to make Boris sound heavyweight...

Imagine Giuliani’s ‘zero tolerance’ of crime woven into Disraelian Toryism: Robocop with a sense of compassion.

I was interested in this 'fact' - that there are now nearly twice as many robberies with violence a year in London than in the larger city of New York - anyone know where this comes from?

Robocop had a sense of compassion. I'll assume the rest of his puff piece is that badly researched. Amateur.

xpost

I think it comes from the NYPD shooting random people sitting quietly in their car.

Imagine London as a Tory stronghold against the Gordon Empire, with Boris as our clean-shaven Asterix. And — unlike the PM — he would have an electoral mandate

I'm no big fan of Brown but this "he doesn't have a mandate" stuff just makes me want to shout 'FUCK OFF' repeatedly.

he doesn't have a mandate

more like man-date if the rumours are true

"rumours"

Who is Paxman voting for?

Spectator might be slightly biased there.

ya fink?

that Paxman pwning of Boris was a treat. The way he steps down from the plinth and then, instead of persisting with his question in the manner of the Michael Howard interview, just dismisses him as an utterly contemptible moron that we all know he is.... supoib.

^^^

http://youtube.com/watch?v=5EujXtSlOwA

"i despair"

this is one bj i do not want lol!!!!!!

i don't see the fuss about the Johnson thing there. Paxman was deliberately needling pedantically for a figure but it felt more of an obstruction rather than some much needed expose of Johnson incompetence. it's pretty obvious why Johnson didn't want to specify an amount (not just his tendency to fudge the maths) and 'it'll cost the same as whatever Ken wants to do' is a standard fob-off so it just felt pointless to me.

the dubbing of the three candidates arguing over footage of George, Zippy and Bungle was better.

but it won't cost the same as whatever ken wants to do 'cause ken doesn't want to design and build a fleet of buses exclusively for tfl.

i don't understand why it's so outlandish an idea, or why bj has made it a major plank: obviously bendy buses are shitty, but why nu-routemasters particularly? in a city that will hosty the olympics in four years time, even £50m for new buses is pretty small beer, and shit, maybe bj could land some kind of reciprocal deal with a dictator of the right, a la ken's pact with chavez, to get it done.

Sarkozy?

"bring the routemasters back" is not a grown up transport policy proposal and paxman's question exposed exactly how unserious boris is about it

xpost

and i don't think for a second that boris can be the kind of operator that ken is - that any mayor of a city like london needs to be - and certainly not the kind that can cut deals with latin american heads of state

why does nrq always end up defending boris' corner??

because he hates ken more

xpost sure but i just think paxman could've gone about it better - i didn't see the rest of the programme tho

don't think i've really defended boris but this

and i don't think for a second that boris can be the kind of operator that ken is - that any mayor of a city like london needs to be - and certainly not the kind that can cut deals with latin american heads of state

-- Tracer Hand, Tuesday, April 29, 2008 12:21 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

is hilarious.

ken is certainly an 'operator', yes.

ok so why don't you like ken livingstone?

partly the anti-semitism, partly the creepy trot thing, partly the manifestly awful public persona -- these last two i wouldn't mind sooooo much if he wasn't 10 miles up the arse of the city and the developers. i thought his attempts at statesmanship, eg on 7/7, have been absurd, and that one in particular really fucked me off (couldn't say exactly why tbh -- unctiousness? bad faith? everyone in my office -- ordinary working londoners is the phrase -- felt similar. the chavez thing kind of ties into the trot thing -- old-school fondness for authoritarian regimes, however complex the situation is. (ie 'over there', for ken, things are black-and-white. over here, one has to make accommodations...) as a non-driver i'm happy to say i think the flat congestion charge is regressive and favours the wealthy. and the way he called trevor phillips quasi-bnp for disagreeing with him was completely fucked.

bendy buses can eat a dick but im not that bothered.

ok thanks for spelling it out

i didn't realise ken was anti-semitic

i don't know what "the creepy trot thing" is?

also, trevor phillips is a dick

i didn't realise ken was anti-semitic

read about the context of the one incident this claim is based on and you may still not realise

you should look up the trot stuff -- search 'socialist action' -- if only for the lols c. 1990. ken's beef with the evening standard guy and those iranian guys was pretty gross, no? i mean, i didnt get into the embracing-of-al-qaradawi thing; whatever you might say about it, ken did a shitty job of explaining why he was quite so open-armed about the guy.

i'm not sure it's relevant if trevor phillips is a dick. i don't think he is -- he's certainly less of a dick than al-qaradawi -- but that doesn't make it ok to say he's like the bnp. especially when ken uses accusations of racism to defend a provenly corrupt colleague -- sub-ilm tactics at best.

obv the old trot left has its share of openly anti-semitic guys too, like ken's friend gerry healy.

how would/will you vote?

sub-ilm tactics at best.

A bit like accusing someone who isn't an anti-semite of being one?

Ken may well have courted al-qaradawi, and for reasons I admit I'm unclear about, but he has consistently put hisLondoners money into LGB stuff which, for me, counts more.

Also Gerry Healy died 18 years ago. I think I've probably had some dodgy mates over the last 20 years. Back then all kinds of alliances were made because, at the height of Thatcherism, you basically made what deals you could. His friendship with Healy was probably more to do with getting his paper printed than anything particularly ideological.