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Boris's first 100 days as Mayor
Katharine Barney, Evening Standard08.08.08
Boris Johnson said today he had built "strong foundations" in his first 100 days as Mayor - but warned there was more work to do.
In particular, Mr Johnson vowed to redouble his efforts to fight crime after the deaths of 22 teenagers this year.
He said: "We will now move forward with fresh ideas and energy to enhance our quality of life, to ensure no one is left behind as our city prospers, to make the streets safer, while delivering value for money in everything we do."
Here, some London commentators and politicians give their verdicts on the Mayor's first 100 days:
Tony Travers, director of the Greater London Group at the London School of Economics
“The Mayor's first weeks will have been stressful. In this country, we are used to sudden death' changeovers.
The need to appoint his deputy mayors and advisers at double-quick speed led to two highly publicised glitches.
But there have thus far been no further problems and it is now possible to start to judge both the Johnson team and its purposes.
The new Mayor's first weeks have seen him concentrating on knife crime, but also on the policing of public transport. Alcohol has been banned on buses and the Tube. There has been a distinct law and order' message, though it is gentle by the standards of the traditional hang-'em-and-flog-'em' Toryism.
It has not been the chaotic disaster Labour was predicting. The Borisocracy is more of a Cabinet than Livingstone's Stalinist caucus. It is jollier. But it remains to be seen if Boris can evolve a clear picture of what he wants to achieve for London and also if he can keep his team in line.
Many of his deputies are clever people used to running their own empires. It may prove hard to ensure that they all speak with the Mayor's voice.”
John Dickie, director of policy and strategy at London First, which represents businesses
“The new Mayor has proved a breath of fresh air. In his first 100 days he has grasped the issues affecting London business. The challenge now is to spend the remaining 1,000 or so translating an encouraging direction of travel into a final destination. In particular, improving London's transport network, working for a safer London, securing a real East End legacy from the Olympics and enhancing London's global competitiveness. We look forward to working with him to deliver.”
Jenny Bates, Friends of the Earth's London campaigns co-ordinator
“After 100 days Boris Johnson has yet to show how he will keep his promise to make London the world's greenest capital. He has made progress in some areas — but this has been undermined by transport policies that will lead to more traffic, more flights and more carbon dioxide emissions.”
Len Duvall, Labour leader on the London Assembly
“The transparency he promised has simply failed to materialise — if anything there is more obscurity than under the previous regime.
The way in which Boris Johnson has made his appointments has left most opinion-formers unsure of who is in charge at City Hall. He has faced the enforced resignations of two key appointments under dubious circumstances, and the formal status of a third has only recently been resolved. Londoners will want to see more than warm words and publicity stunts.”
Caroline Pidgeon, Lib-Dem Assembly Member
“There have been some embarrassments. However, the next six months will be the real test … We need to see TfL, and especially middle management in London Underground, pruned to become leaner and more efficient.
Seemingly, though, all the real decisions are being made away from City Hall, probably in Conservative Central Office, and so I think we should be seeing the London mayoralty as a real test of whether David Cameron's Tory Party can run an effective administration.”
Darren Johnson, Green Party leader on the London Assembly
“Dumping the £25 emissions-based congestion charge, scrapping probably the biggest purchase order for zero-emission vehicles in the world and abandoning the 50 per cent affordable housing target are all evidence of a major backtrack. The Mayor's budget guidance proposing a 15 per cent cut in spending means many more key programmes are likely to face the axe.”
CITY HALL: BUDGETS CUTS OF £12M ARE JUST A START
Pledge: Give Londoners more “bang for their buck”.
Verdict: Will cut City Hall budget by £12 million in October, the earliest date possible, when approved by the London Assembly. Promised to spend the savings on other priorities, such as tackling youth crime, but it is small change compared with the Mayor's total budget of £11 billion. Londoners will also expect savings at TfL and the London Development Agency. Cancelled free paper The Londoner and cut over £1 million from the £4.6 million budget for the trip to Beijing.
Pledge: Make advisers more accountable.
Verdict: Details of the Mayor's team went online after much dragging of feet. It is still incomplete: chief-of-staff, multi-millionaire Tim Parker, has failed to publish his interests. Deputy mayor for planning Sir Simon Milton initially refused to give up his position as a Westminster councillor, making appointment messy. Deputy mayor for young people Ray Lewis wrongly claimed to be a JP. But nobody checked, and with allegations about his past as a clergyman involving financial and sexual misconduct, he quit.
Pledge: Investigate the LDA and publish details of grants over £1,000, to improve transparency.
Verdict: Set up a forensic audit panel which found tens of millions of pounds had been wasted under the previous regime, but through ineptitude rather than corruption. All new LDA grants now published online. Axed the oil-for-economic-advice deal with Venezuela.
Pledge: Not to stand for more than two terms. To lobby for term limits legislation.
Verdict: We'll have to wait until 2016. The Government said legislation would be undemocratic.
CRIME: PROMISING START BUT LONG HAUL
Pledge: Make tackling knife and gun crime a high priority. Make greater use of hand-held scanners, knife arches and neighbourhood crime maps. Set up Mayor's Fund to get private-sector cash to help tackle youth crime. More Rape Crisis centres.
Verdict: The problem is so big it will take years for his efforts to produce results. Operation Blunt, flooding knife-crime areas with police and searching youths, was implemented almost straight away. Blunt 2, using intelligence, is also in operation now, leading to the seizure of 1,445 knives. The Mayor's Fund will be launched in autumn. Crime maps hit a snag but the Government has pledged to publish them. No new Rape Crisis centres yet.
Pledge: Make the transport network safer. Remove free Travelcards from young people who behave antisocially.
Verdict: 440 extra Police Community Support Officers and 50 extra British Transport Police are on the Tube and buses and 200 more BTP officers have been redeployed to patrol stations and trains. It is too early to assess the impact. No moves on Travelcards.
Pledge: Ban alcohol on the Tube to reduce anti-social behaviour.
Verdict: Done. No problems enforcing the ban have been reported by the unions, who had complained it would be difficult to implement.
TRANSPORT: KEPT TICKET OFFICE PLEDGE
Tube — pledge: Halt ticket office closures. Persuade unions to sign a no-strike deal in return for binding arbitration. Introduce air conditioning and extend Oyster top-up network.
Verdict: Kept 40 ticket offices open. However, unions are refusing a no-strike deal, which could see Boris back down or face a strike. Air-conditioning on subsurface lines was already planned for next year. Deep-level lines are more problematic.
Buses — Pledge: Replace bendy buses with hybrid Routemasters that the Mayor now estimates will cost up to £100 million. Introduce orbital bus routes.
Verdict: Has launched a design competition for a new bus fleet but doubts remain about costs and whether the scheme will go ahead. No proposals on orbital bus routes have been made.
Congestion charge – pledge: Fine utility companies that dig up roads, “reform” the congestion charge, rephase traffic lights and bring in monthly billing.
Verdict: A referendum on the western extension of the zone is to be held next month. The Mayor is in talks with Transport for London about rephasing traffic lights to ease congestion. Angered greens by scrapping plans for £25 gas- guzzler charge.
Cycling – Pledge: Improve a bike-hire scheme and increase secure cycle parking.
Verdict: The hire scheme is not likely to come in until 2010, and London Cycle Network Plus has stalled.
HOUSING: HOPES PINNED ON REGENERATION
Pledge: Protect green spaces and historic views.
Verdict: Dropped the existing 100 Public Spaces programme, including the pedestrianisation of Parliament Square, but claims to be developing his own strategy. Angered locals in Upton Park after deputy mayor Ian Clement said he was in favour of a 31-storey tower block on the site of a market. The “Penny Whistle” tower in Ealing has been scaled back from 40 to 24 storeys to comply with the priorities of the new regime.
Pledge: Drop target to make 50 per cent of all new homes in London affordable and build 50,000 more homes instead. Invest £60 million from the Regional Housing Pot to renovate the capital's 84,205 empty properties.
Verdict: Westminster council plans to build 500 homes, more than half of which will be affordable
housing. Ordered a comprehensivelist to be drawn up of every abandoned and rundown building in the
capital as the first stage of a £60 million drive to turn them into affordable homes. The audit will draw attention to the worst properties
and encourage action to be taken about them.
ENVIRONMENT: NO SIGN OF GREEN ADVISER YET
Pledge: Protect green belt and invest
£6 million in making open spaces cleaner and greener.
Verdict: Announced amendments to the London Plan to protect against development on gardens. No sign yet of investment in London's green spaces, just a dispute over dropping the 100 Public Spaces programme promised by Ken Livingstone.
Pledge: Help cut London's carbon emissions by 60 per cent from their 1990 levels by 2025.
Verdict: Has not yet appointed a green adviser.
Pledge: Oppose the third runway at Heathrow on environmental grounds.
Verdict: His green case was undermined with a major policy U-turn on City Airport. He angered green lobbyists when he backed plans to increase the number of flights out of the airport by 50 per cent. His proposal for a new east London airport would dramatically increase emissions.
Reader views (17)
<3 Boris. Hopefully his election signals the imminent return of the Tories to government.
- Jack, London WC1H
Nice work Boris. Good practical decisions and action from the word go.
- Al, Shepton Mallet
In answer to Nick: the Mayor does not have any power over law enforcement. He does not appoint, and cannot sack, the Met Police Commissioner, and he cannot give orders to the police. Nor can he force London's idiotically lenient magistrates to give tougher sentences to young offenders. If only this centralising Labour government would give elected mayors the kind of powers that the Mayor of New York have, the Mayor would actually be able to make a difference.
- Alan Bates, London, UK.
Well done Boris!
A good start, but please keep it up!
- Peter, N1
On my nightbus at 3.30am in Wood Green last night there were 20 teenagers, most clearly under the age of 18, each one carrying alcohol, cans - bottles, litres of cider - you name it, they were drinking it. Apart from this, the shouting, fighting and swearing made the journey extremely unpleasant. A few of them cursorily waved something that might have been an Oyster card at the driver, but the majority didn't bother and were vindicated in their judgement that they didn't need to bother. This happens most nights on that bus and despite the initial wariness it is now becoming more common to see people drinking on the Tube again. This in itself is not an issue, but the drunkenness late at night is.
Boris may have banned alcohol on public transport, which made for a great headline, and he may have threatened to remove free travel from unruly kids, which made for another great splash. Effectively though virtually nothing is being done to enforce these rules, so, as predicted by many, it's just a publicity stunt. We already have laws to prevent under age drinking and antisocial behaviour. We didn't need his publicity stunt versions, we just need what we already have to be enforced properly.
Score for the first 100 days on these big policy initiatives = zero.
- Nick, London
So far so good Boris, but when is anyone going to sort out the HOMELESS that decorate our streets.
- Kadir, Waterloo, London
Bravo, Boris... Bravo!
- Billy Bob, London
So to summarise, Boris has cut or prevented a lot of things (except the violent youth crime he claimed he was clamping down on) and, er, not much else. I had a punt on him in May. I won't be doing that again if he carries on like this.
- Jonathan, London, UK
WELL done Boris there is an air of hope & change in London, maybe we can now enjoy living here again! Thanks!
- Anita, London
Do the people making the comments “well done Boris” actually have any idea what he has done or is doing? Not a lot as far as I can see with the first 100 days spent appointing and then sacking some of the army of un-elected deputies. Boris needs to get serious, get over Ken and start making some decisions, and fast!
- Ade, London
Well done, Boris, a great start. I suspect that not a single person who voted for you would now say they regretted it, although I’m not sure the same could be said of so many of Livingstone’s supporters. I think that even the most hardened Kennist would concede that you have acted like a leader and dealt with things swiftly and effectively. And with quotes like this, you’ve done something your predecessor singularly failed to do even once in 8yrs; make Londoners smile: "It always perplexed me that boffins could produce mobile phones the size of a credit card - yet passengers would emerge dripping with sweat from tube trains that lacked air conditioning."
- St, London
Well done Boris, keep up the good work. Don't let the communist slime ware you down. Politics of envy will dissipate providing you show the people just what the socialist scum are up to. Using public founds to get cronies to write up-beat reports on Livingstone/Nu-Labs disaster our ruin of London is at least misfeasance in public office if not treason. We don't need to build holiday homes for Eastern Europeans in the South East of England. We need to look after those that made Britain great not those that want to destroy it. Deport all latte drinking Islington trendies and the Loony left lawyers that support them to Cuba. Lots to be done there.
- Mike, London
For 100 days, the achievements are already pretty impressive. But above all, Boris has given a sparkle to the administration of our city. That is priceless. Particularly when you compare it to the self-righteous Trots, greens, unionists and the sheer bloody-minded who were in charge before.
- Ken, Bexleyheath
Keep going Boris. I, and many of my acquaintances believe you are -so far -doing a good job. Don't listen to the knockers and the Ken brigade they're only scared of the success you are having job because they know they will never get back in power.
- Michael, London
It's gone as expected really - the 4 x 4 cavier elite have been pacified, the "green pledges" have evaporated, plenty of (meaningless) photo opportunities (e.g. - withpublic schoolgirl Lily Allen on crime).
Throw in a lot of bluster, appointment clangers and you have the foundations of a joke administration. Hilarious for the time being - increasingly embarrassing with it.
- Charlie, London
"No problems enforcing the [tube drinking] ban have been reported by the unions, who had complained it would be difficult to implement."
That one sentence sums up the whole story of Bob Crowe and the hate-filled Livingstone Left who kept telling us a Boris mayoralty would be a disaster.
I've also heard first-hand from a friend that the working atmosphere at City Hall has improved immeasurably since Boris booted out the control freaks who ran the place like a miniature Kremlin.
- Howard, Essex
So far so good Boris, but its not the first year that concerns me its the fourth, hope you have the stamina, the will, the foresight, and the passion to last the course.
- Mr S.Port, London
