Boris: 6 months on
Andrew thinks he’s doing rather well, Dave is less convinced. Fair-minded Martin can see both sides of the argument. This writer thinks that, of the ragbag of City Hall watchers who regularly put fingers to keyboards, the commentator who’s nailed it best is wise old Tony. I guess you don’t get to run the LSE’s “Greater London Group” (whatever that is) for nothing.
Travers’ central thesis is pretty simple: the Johnson administration, after a shaky start, has finally managed to bed in; and while some good small-scale initiatives have been announced, crucially, a “narrative” has yet to emerge.
This is not the first time Travers, or others, have levelled this accusation. Lack of “Narrative”, “vision”, “big ideas”, whatever you want to call it, a range of phrases along these lines come up repeatedly. And while small-government conservatives may rejoice at a big player who appears to be shying away from big spending, the problem remains that the mythical “man on the street” (i.e. the voter) almost certainly is unable to articulate what the new Mayor stands for or is trying to do.
Contrast this with his predecessor – even his greatest detractors would be able to sum up Ken’s vision for London (loads of public transport, punitive measures against car owners, lots of green and “diversity” initiatives and, er, a foreign policy out of the 1983-vintage Labour Party playbook).
So far Boris’ big ticket ideas have had just a hint of silliness about them: a Blue Peter-style competition to draw a picture of a bus and quixotic-sounding feasibility study into building an airport in a flood plain. There was also an unforgettable jacket-flapping appearance at the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.
To be fair, a decent sounding set of ideas around policing popped out around 10 days ago; but problematically these are long-term proposals which might not have borne much vote-winning fruit by the next election. Otherwise it’s mostly been tinkering around the edges of existing plans and searching for cost efficiencies.
It feels like a massive amount of the new administration’s energy has gone into appointments and the dreaded “organisational change”. These have had varying degrees of necessity and efficacy - certainly a lot of the proposed GLA restructuring looks like so much window dressing. That this has taken so much time isn’t the new Mayor’s fault - a two-day transition period is frankly insane - but the slow and shaky start made Boris look uncertain and overwhelmed.
The Mayoral term is four years. For a new Mayor, year one is about transition and policy, year two about implementation, year three delivery and year four re-election. That gives him about six more months to publish detailed plans on his biggest and best ideas (please note: abolishing the last guy’s more extravagant schemes does not count as an idea). Time to get cracking, Boris.