Commentary: Clever political moves ... and plenty of distinctive Borisisms

This speech was absolutely full of distinctive Borisisms. Quite how the American embassy will receive his comments about the "cyborg" governor of the biggest and most powerful state in the country I just don't know but you have to say it will go down well in Britain.

It is interesting that he has maintained the straightforward defence of the City. On balance it would be odd if any mayor of London did anything else.

He's right to point out that many, many jobs in London, perhaps a third, are in finance and business services, so he's right to talk up what is, in effect, London's biggest and most value-added industry.

We all connived in the great bubble of the City so it is rich of the Government to now pretend it was on the other side. Boris is probably right to have a go at them for that.

The city academies announcement was a clever move politically because it leaves the Mayor more in support of the Government's education policy than many Labour MPs. It's another step for Andrew Adonis across the floor into a Conservative government. The implication would be that David Cameron would want to adopt the policy on taking office.

Boris does want more power over the police. The Tories are much more activist about the traditional role of the chief constable. At the moment, once appointed he's there for life. You can read into this that the Tories are going to go for more political appointments of police.

His remarks on broken society were an attempt to paper over the difference between the strongly articulated Cameron view and that of the city's Mayor. It would be very dangerous for a city mayor to say his city is fractured. It shows the difference between being in power and being in opposition. When in power you can't say society is breaking down - you are attacking your own people. Boris is behaving more responsibly than Cameron.

The council tax precept freeze is only for one year. It shows caution, which is sensible, but it's not that difficult to achieve frankly given the scale of the Mayor's precept. When you consider TfL spends £6 billion a year, if you put fares up one per cent you would plug the gap, but Boris has put fares up six per cent.

Tony Travers is director of the Greater London Group at the London School of Economics