As Jeremy Paxman said in his intro to last night’s debate (RealPlayer) between the three main candidates, the Mayoralty of London is a very important job. The figures alone are worth repeating – a budget of nine billion pounds a year and a total spend of thirty-six billion pounds.

I wish that the debate had been a bit more policy-heavy; I’m afraid that Mr Johnson blustered and barn-stormed a bit. To be perfectly frank, I don’t think last night’s debate achieved much. The arguments are rehearsed and there is little analysis. This is not helped by Boris Johnson’s blustering and interrupting when the other two were at least trying to engage with the issues.

When Boris does not have minders to hand, we see what we could call ‘old Boris’ or ‘authentic Boris’. Part of that is stylistic; his very last comment – ‘why not’ – when Paxman said he couldn’t keep speaking (it was the end of the segment) was remarkable in its petulance and mock-affrontery. Equally, he does not have a decent grasp of his own policies. One of the central planks of his manifesto is a new fleet of Routemaster-style buses. You would hope he would have a costing for it – how many buses would he be able to buy at what price? Let’s look at last night’s debate.

“Jeremy Paxman (JP): Where do you get this idea you can develop Routemaster buses in a new incarnation for £8m?

Boris Johnson (BJ): Nobody has ever proposed that. What I was saying was that if you wanted to have conductors for 337 bendy buses, which was the notional discussion I was having with Vanessa as it happens the other day, then it would cost about £8m. If you wanted to have conductors …

JP: You want a new fleet of …

BJ: I do. If you want conductors for the new generation Routemaster bus, which I do, and I think would be essential for London and I think would be much valued by Londoners, then you’d need to spend about £25m.

JP: £25m for a fleet of how many buses?

BJ: No, for the buses that’s a different matter and that’s a different funding …

JP: How many? How much would it cost?

BJ: Let me invite me you to speculate how much the Mayor’s…

JP: No, no, no, no! I want you to speculate, in fact more than speculate, tell us how much it would cost.

BJ: Let me tell you this, they would cost no more and no less than the Mayor’s own manifesto commitment to produce another 500 hybrid buses which are going to ply the streets of London.

JP: Which is what?

BJ: Which will be bought, of course, as the Mayor knows full well, not by TfL, they will be bought by the bus companies…

JP: Give us a figure come on!

BJ: I think when you look…

JP: Come on!

BJ: … at the prospect that this offers London.

JP: What is the figure?

BJ: The average cost of the bendy bus is about £200,000. I envisage it being, the cost over time being substantially amortised to be easily bearable under the transport budget. And certainly …

JP: Am I not making myself clear – what we want to know is how much you propose to spend on this new fleet of Routemaster buses?

BJ: As I say, it will be no more, no less …

JP: A figure.

BJ: … than the cost of the Mayor’s …

JP: I despair.

BJ: Five hundred new hybrid buses! I invite the Mayor now to tell us how much he’s proposing to spend on the new 500 hybrid buses.

Ken Livingstone: The new Routemaster has to be designed and built, it will be very expensive.

BJ: Your hybrid bus is yet to be invented…

JP: We’re getting nowhere here”

Despite having plenty of time since the £100m hole in his transport plans was discovered, Mr Johnson has still note sorted out how many buses of what kind he wants and at what prices. Just as a footnote about hybrid buses ‘not having been invented’, DaimlerChrysler’s subsidiary, Orion, make hybrid buses, as do GM Allison. They are essentially big versions of the Prius. Saying that the fleet of Routemasters would cost the same as the hybrids is a bit of a cop out as he won’t give a concrete figure or, crucially, say how many buses of what specification would be purchased.

Transport is, I feel, the most important part of the Mayor’s remit. More than anything else, the ability to move around the city for work, pleasure and family is essential to London’s continued success. Where London was, eight years ago, falling behind Paris and possibly Hamburg, it is now ahead of New York. While Mr Paddick at least has ideas (albeit ones that I disagree with), Mr Johnson is operating on a level of abstraction and generality. The improvements in transport since the creation of the GLA – more, better buses that everyone can access, Crossrail, Tramlink, London Overground, cycling and the Tube – need to be secured by someone with an understanding of how the entirety of the city works and the vision to press forward with controversial measures.

There is a new poll out for the Guardian, this time by Ipsos Mori. In essence, Mr Johnson and Mr Livingstone are neck and neck. Mr Livingstone comes out ahead, but within the margin of error.  Interestingly, as Dave Hill points out, Mike ‘politicalbetting.com’ Smithson has closed most of his positions on a Johnson win. If I understand it correctly, he thinks that a Johnson win is less likely than in the past, when he took the positions,  I would say that last night was a win on points for Mr Livingstone but that it’s being picked up on by some of the media commentators in a manner I wouldn’t have expected - perhaps that Mr Johnson has spent his powder.

xD.

Posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Categories: London Votes 2008.
RSS 2.0 feed for this post
Leave a comment
Trackback