Mayor Johnson, as we know, opposed the smoking ban. His voting history on the issue can be found on TheyWorkForYou.com. The noxious fumes produced by the evil weed were not, it would seem, enough in Mr Johnson’s opinion to warrant an intrusion on people’s liberty and bar and pub workers would have to lump it; they could, of course, choose to be out of a job at any time if their health was such a big issue.

At Old Street station, there is a sign up announcing that alcohol will be banned from the first of June on public transport. The occasional drunken idiot is now more of a threat than smoking, which the World Health Organisation considers to be behind 26% of male deaths and 9% of female deaths in the developed world.

It is gesture politics for three reasons.

Firstly, it is unenforceable. Part of Mr Johnson’s campaign was the reintroduction of bus conductors to prevent anti-social behaviour on buses. Unfortunately, his costings were a little bit out. £92 million out, as it happens. Unless every bus, every tram and every carriage is covered, people are going to chance taking that can of their bag and having a beer while they’re going wherever they’re going. That would be nigh-on impossible, and the 400 extra officers proposed, while undoubtedly welcome, will not be able to enforce it.

Secondly, it will make matters worse as people will stand outside the tube station or hold up the bus while they neck their alcohol of choice before getting on the vehicle in question. It will also make life a lot harder for the poor sods who have to try to enforce this - TfL staff. As Bob Crow (and it’s not often I agree with him) has pointed out, you’re making staff pick unnecessary fights.

Thirdly, it’s targeting the wrong problem. That problem is too much drinking in general in the UK and is better dealt with through social means - health education and so on. Unfortunately, that takes time, money and lots of work behind the scenes and does not give the lovely, ‘get tough’ headlines.

Don’t get me wrong - I’d rather people didn’t drink on public transport. However, I think there are better ways to tackle the issue and better places to spend the resources committed to this idea. It is, however, an eyecatching headline that every Londonder will at least notice because of the signs going up at every tube station.

I do wonder whether Mayor Johnson thinks the same applies to tubes as planes. In a speech in Parliament on 16th May 2003, he said

Might the Minister reflect on that, thinking whether, if there is to be a total ban on being drunk on a plane at any time, it may be necessary to consider some compensatory measure to bring back smoking sections on aeroplanes? Many people frankly find it difficult to put up with the rigours of a long flight without the sustenance and reassurance of a smoke .

I am sure that many people consider Bank tube station in the morning as bad as a long flight.

xD.

Looking at a situation from another perspective can be a good thing. A trip to Brussels has done something to improve my mood about the political situation in the UK. It would seem that, of the relatively few people who have noticed the change of mayor of London, most are reacting in the same way that many people reacted to Bush’s 2004 election:

“How? Why?”

Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

More seriously, I think Mayor Johnson might have a little work to do on his image beyond these shores if he wants to be a world city leader; not a huge amount, but something that describes his ‘vision’ for London. Beyond that, the reaction was, I found, surprise that people here are worrying so much about second-order elections perhaps two years from a general election.

xD.

Mayor Johnson

The headline news is, of course, the victory of Boris Johnson. It is no secret (at least if you’ve been reading this blog!) that I was and remain a strong supporter of Ken Livingstone and that I have very grave doubts about the Johnson mayoralty. I have tried to draw a comparison between relations between the GLA and the boroughs on transport and on housing. On housing, there is no doubt that some boroughs – particularly Tory boroughs, and particularly Wandsworth (11%) and Westminster (10%) - are doing very little in terms of affordable housing. The figures in brackets refer to the amount of newly-built affordable housing as a fraction of total new build in the boroughs; the requirement is for fifty per cent. Despite the protestations of ‘New Boris’, many Conservatives in the capital will resent interference and instructions from on high and simply do not see affordable housing as a priority. I believe the same problems will occur when it comes to the Freedom Pass and other aspects of transport, such as bus routing. Without co-ordination and, indeed, compulsion from the centre, the boroughs will do what they perceive as best for their patch, rather than what is best for the totality of London. It represents a step back from strategic governance of London.

Staying with transport, Johnson has a pretty good starting point: the Bill authorising Crossrail is working its way through Parliament; London Overground has come on-stream and work to improve it is taking place; the East London line is being extended and plugged into London Overground. There are many challenges, not least of which is Crossrail. Johnson will, likely as not, try to make good on his pledge to scrap or, at least, redeploy the bendy buses in London. This, combined with his rather creaky mathematics on a new Routemaster, could end up in a lot of money being spent in rather inefficient and unproductive ways. If we take as a single example the 507 route that connects Waterloo and Victoria stations, we see the advantages of the bendy buses for some routes; few people are travelling without paying as most have travelcards and the ease and speed of ingress and egress is important on a route that is carrying full busloads of commuters at peak times. I understand that Mr Johnson wants to develop river services. While it sounds like a nice idea, the tidal nature of the Thames means that times will never be the same from day to day. At best, it will remain a minor part of London’s transport mix.

My concern is that much of the good work of the last eight years will be either lost or not used to best effect. Livingstone had a vision for London and a vision for London’s transport that encompassed a variety of modes, saw cycling and walking as part of the mix, and put being able to move about, even if you’re poor, as a high priority. For this reason we saw, for instance, London Overground to facilitate circular (day-to-day living) rather than just radial (in-and-out journeys for work in the centre) journeys and the driving through of the Tube to one of the poorest boroughs, Hackney, that did not have a tube station to call its own. Equally, the ambitious plans for further trams and the Greenwich Riverside Transit bus scheme and the like must lie under a cloud.

There is a particularly dark cloud over the Freedom Pass. Shortly before the election, Mr Johnson announced Brian Cooke, chair of London Travelwatch, as one of his supporters. I wrote about it at some length here, but with an advisor who has panned the Freedom Pass and a light-touch attitude towards making the boroughs fund the Pass, I am doubtful that it will be extended in any meaningful way and concerned for its future as a whole.

Beyond that, I fear that the environment and congestion will worsen in London as Johnson is at best lukewarm about the c-charge and opposed outright to the £25 charge for the most polluting cars. I also remain concerned at the effect of Boris shooting his mouth off at the wrong time.

Lib Dems

The Liberal Democrats fell apart. Brian Paddick was not the man to lead them to a bright new dawn in London. It would appear that Boris Johnson’s victory is due to Lib Dems and UKIPpers supporting Johnson, with their shares of the mayoral vote dropping 5.2 and 5.1% respectively with the Tories’ rising by 14.3%. To be honest, there’s not much more to say than that a resurgent Tory party can take votes from Lib Dems and some former ‘dissatisfied Tories’, which bodes not well for Labour in the next general election.

The Lib Dems on the Assembly now hold the balance of power. There are eleven Tories; the eight Labour AMs and two Green AMs mean that, no matter which way the BNP go, the Lib Dems must choose between red and blue. It will be interesting to see which way they generally go and whether they articulate a coherent vision for London.

The Greens

I make no secret of my positive disposition towards the Green party. I think they will be disappointed not to have achieved another seat, but given that all the traffic was towards Johnson and Labour was going hell for leather to make sure that everyone who might vote Labour did vote Labour. As my friend Aled, who ran for the Greens, says in the comments

“Despite the major party Labour-Tory ’squeeze’ which crushed the Lib Dems, we held onto our 3 seats and weren’t that far off 3. Our vote stayed pretty much the same as last time and our constituency votes rose in most places, meaning we saved all deposits except one.

We were also a clear fourth in Mayoral 1st Preferences and came 3rd on 2nd Preferences (however meaningless that is!).”

The BNP

The BNP have a seat on the assembly. Across the capital, 5.33% of voters chose to vote for them. It behoves all of us to watch Richard Barnbrook like a hawk. The only good thing is that the BNP’s share of the vote barely rose, by one-fifth of one per cent, and that they were unable to win a constituency member even in City & East. There, they did poll 9.62%, which is still pretty worrying.

I am not sure what long-term effects the BNP’s victory will have. It is their first win off a local council, but they had been hoping for two seats. They will seek to capitalise on the publicity and the salary and expenses will be useful; however, their previous elected officials have been woefully inadequate, frequently not turned up to meetings and attracted allegations of sleaze pretty quickly. It will hopefully galvanise people to work against the BNP in east London, much as happened in the West Midlands. In the short term, I am very concerned about what will happen; it is all to easy to see an increase in racially-motivated violence, as happened in Tower Hamlets when the BNP gained a councillor.

The Left

The left don’t matter in London. Despite being able to cast a second preference for Ken, only 16,976 gave their first preferences to Lindsey German and the Left List for the mayoralty. By way of comparison, their 0.68% share of first preferences is less than the 0.91% for UKIP, 1.60% for the Christian Choice and represents slightly less than a quarter of the 2.84% who voted for Richard Barnbrook of the BNP.

There is scarcely more comfort for the left on the Assembly. Respect (George Galloway) only ran in one constituency, City & East, and came third behind the Conservatives. The Left List (the SWP part of Respect) did best in the Enfield & Haringey constituency, where they won 3.5% of the vote.

I would go so far as to say that the only thing achieved by the left parties was to stop the BNP getting a second seat on the Assembly.

One London

UKIP/Veritas/One London have disappeared; I cannot say I am particularly surprised or disappointed. Damian Hockney and Peter Hulme Cross were non-entities on the Assembly. Hockney stood down from the mayoral election after protesting that media attention was all on the large parties; given that Sian Berry received quite a lot of coverage and Lindsay German a fair amount, I think the charge doesn’t stand up. Given that Hockney and Hulme Cross stood as UKIP, ditched them for Veritas and then became One London when Kilroy-Silk’s party fell apart, I’d say that it was pretty obvious that they were going to be kicked off the Assembly.

Labour

It’s bad. Of that, there can be no doubt. It’s not quite time to write Labour off for the next election; not yet, anyway. For many people, myself included, this is the first, major setback at elections in our adult life; I was not old enough to vote in 1997 and a period without the executive of London may prove a salutatory experience.

Labour did, in fact, gain one seat on the Assembly and the vote for Ken was slightly up, by seven-tenths of a percent, on last time round. There is still a viable, progressive coalition in London but against a strong opposition, it is not enough on its own unless every ‘core’ Labour supporter turns out to vote. I suspect that the current state of the national party did not help, but the performance of Ken and the London Labour party against a rubbish overall picture was remarkable.

Three final points

The Evening Standard was cheerleading for Johnson and against Livingstone for some time. I may return to this in future, but the unique position of the paper as the only paid-for, London-wide newspaper (if London Lite and thelondonpaper can even be considered newspapers) gives it a powerful position. I am well aware that it is a private newspaper, but the effect is similar to the BBC campaigning for the Tories. It may be time to launch the Morning Courier.

The London Assembly has been a bit anonymous. This is a subject I will definitely return to as individual AMs and the Assembly as a whole need to be more visible.

Beyond London, the lessons are fewer as the demographics of the capital are very different to the rest of the country. The main issues is that voters are leaving the Lib Dems for the Tories and that, at least when there is no European election, UKIP voters are joining them. I don’t know whether this will impact on the timing of the general election.

xD.

Jon Cruddas or Oona King?

xD.

For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirl-wind.

Hosea 8:7

Boris has won. Congratulations to him.

xD.

If you’re quick and you’ll review them. Visit BlogAPenguinClassic.co.uk.

I’m going to be reviewing an anthology of Imagist Poetry.

xD.

The voting and campaigning is over and now we wait.

Click the image for a full size version; it was taken today around half past four.

One of the tragedies of local elections is that many hardworking local councillors who care more for their community than any particular party affiliation will lose their seats because of national political shifts.

xD.

You can read them in full, with the logic behind them, on Liberal Conspiracy.

One: Livingstone Has Better Policies

Two: Livingstone Has Made The Best Joke

Three: Brian Paddick & His Partner

Four: Livingstone Is A Better Politician

Five: London Needs To Be Bossed From The CentreSix: Livingstone Is A Better Leader

Seven: The Evening Standard Will Be Gutted If Livingstone Wins

Eight: The Tories Don’t Really Deserve To Win

Nine: Livingstone Knows More Of London And Londoners

Ten: We Can’t Be Sure What A Mayor Johnson Would Do

Kevin Maguire of the Daily Mirror also has a cut-out-and-keep guide for whatever happens tomorrow.

There is another good reason to vote, whoever you cast your vote for: a higher turnout makes it harder for the BNP to have people elected to the assembly.

xD.

Boris Johnson’s campaign has announced a new supporter, specialising in transport: Brian Cooke.

Mr Cooke is the chair¹ of London TravelWatch and has just been unveiled as a backer to bring some gravitas to Mr Johnson’s campaign. The Johnson campaigned issued a press release that you can read here. Unfortunately, you can’t read it on Mr Johnson’s own website, because it’s been taken down. A poster proclaiming Mr Johnson’s undying love for the Freedom Pass is there instead, at the original link to the press reease: http://www.backboris.com/assets/releases/pdf/28_04_08_cooke.pdf. Here are some excerpts Mr Johnson’s press release announcing his high-profile backer.

Boris Johnson said:

I am delighted that Brian – a man who knows better than anyone the real concerns of Londoners when it comes to transport issues – has chosen to endorse my campaign.

“His endorsement is reflective of a wider desire for change in London. On May 1st Londoners have the choice to put up with more of the same old tired approach or vote for the candidate with the ideas and energy for tackling the problems on London’s transport network.”

So far so good.

“There is however one principal thing I disagree with Boris Johnson on. I do not believe that scrapping the bendy bus is a good idea. A review of which routes they are used on yes but scrapping no.”

I’m not sure that’s quite on message, but fair enough; not everyone agrees with every policy that the candidate they support promotes, but they are still very happy to campaign for them. The agreement must be pretty close in this case, as the press release from the Johnson campaign does specify that there is only one principal area on which they disagree.

“Brian was also very critical of Ken Livingstone’s plans to extend the freedom pass to be available 24 hours per day.

[…]

“I think that plain daft […] totally crazy […] this mad idea”

Currently, the front page of Mr Johnson’s website has an image saying that “Boris Johnson guarantees to protect and extend the Freedom Pass” before describing it as “an untouchable right for London pensioners”. Yes, the same policy that his transport bod describes as daft, crazy and mad.

This is not the first time that London Conservatives have been less than enthusiastic about the Freedom Pass. Kensington & Chelsea Councillor, Daniel Moylan, who is the Chair of the Transport and Environment Committee on the (Tory-controlled) ‘London Councils’² said, as far back as 5 June 2007, that the Freedom Pass is a “stealth tax on Londoners”.

I have the dubious honour of being in today’s Evening Standard. Andrew Gilligan writes an article entitled “Labour accused of dirty tricks over ‘threat to Freedom Pass’ ”

Mayor Ken Livingstone has himself claimed at least twice that Mr Johnson will attack the Freedom Pass. In remarks to pensioners at the Middle Park Community Centre in Eltham last Tuesday, witnessed by an Evening Standard reporter, he said: “Boris will come under pressure from Tory councils to scrap it, pressure he cannot resist.”

In a video-streamed interview with a blogger, Dave Cole, at the launch of his transport manifesto last month, Mr Livingstone said: “I don’t believe he [ Johnson] will keep the pensioners’ free travel as it is.”

The video in question is here. In short, Mr Livingstone has committed himself, should he be re-elected to the mayoralty, to fully funding the £20m cost of the freedom pass from the TfL budget. That is pretty clear. Mr Johnson, on the other hand has merely said that he will “work with the local councils who pay for the Freedom Pass to make it operate 24 hours a day”. That is rather ambiguous and ignores one rather important fact - in order for Mr Johnson to work with the boroughs, the boroughs would have to work with Mr Johnson, and therein lies the problem. If we turn to housing, where everyone agrees that we need more affordable housing (even if there is disagreement about how to achieve it), the current target of 50% affordable housing in all new build over (I think) a dozen units is not being achieved because some of the boroughs - Westminster, Wandsworth - consistently end up with ten or eleven per cent affordable houses. It is better to negotiate where possible, but it is only possible where there is a stick to make both sides come to the table.

In essence, Mr Johnson has committed himself to an unfunded aspiration, dependent on the goodwill of a rather disparate body of councils, to extend the Freedom Pass while his transport bod says that the whole thing is daft.

Let’s go back to Andrew Gilligan’s article, to the very first paragraph.

“Labour faced claims of “dirty tricks” today as it was revealed it is claiming that the Freedom Pass travel card for over-Sixties is under threat from the Tories and Lib-Dems.”

I don’t think it’s dirty tricks. When a mayoral candidate announces, shortly before the election, that he has a new supporter, specialising in transport, and sends out a press release in which that supporter calls the Freedom Pass policy daft, crazy and mad, it seems pretty reasonable for Labour to want to point this out to voters in London.

The Freedom Pass allows pensioners - far too often amongst the poorest in society - to travel around London for all their daily tasks. Often, these include childcare, looking after grandkids while parents are at work. To penalise grandparents for doing this by restricting the Freedom Pass to after 0930 - well after parents will have left for work - seems unfair and unnecessary.

You can read more on this story on Ken’s website.

xD.

1 - formerly the Association of London Government.

2 - in abeyance

Click for a larger version.

xD.