Bob Piper has been a Labour Councillor for the Abbey
Ward in Sandwell, West Midlands, for nine years. He is a lifelong supporter of Aston Villa Football Club and a follower of Yorkshire County Cricket Club.
The views expressed here are mine in a personal capacity, not those of the Labour Party, Sandwell MBC, Aston Villa or Yorkshire County Cricket Club. Get it! Mine... just mine!
It will not be enough to see him through the next four years. Mayor Boris has two assets: the ambition - he will not want to fail - and a brain. Narrowly missing a First in Greats, he did not fall short because of stress arising from overwork. Yet there is one problem with the brain. It has hardly been used. Boris has never written a closely argued article: never tried to think his way through a complex intellectual question. When he is not clowning and goofing, he is remarkably inarticulate. He will take a dart at an issue, offering his solution in a slangy stumble. When someone points out the obvious flaws in his suggestion, he quickly becomes peevish. From now on, he will have to do better than that.
Just as an example, take this exchange with Johann Hari reproduced on Your Friend in the North on Johnson's support for Clause 28:
JH: Many gay people would feel anxious that you supported Section 28, and just a few years ago accused the government of having "an appalling agenda of encouraging the teaching of homosexuality in schools." Did you really think it was possible to teach children to be gay?
BJ: No, no, no, no, no - what's that? The only point I was making there was that I thought that this was being introduced in a sort of… my point was about political Balkanising. It was being done to provoke people, rather than any real desire to. As I recall the issue was to do with compulsion. Wasn't the question (about) whether or not schools should be compelled to have (these lessons)? I thought the issue was 'are you compelling teachers in schools to take a particular line', and I'm not in favour of that.
JH: No, that's not what Section 28 was. It wasn't about compelling people to teach about anything – it was the opposite. Section 28 in practice was a ban on ever teaching about homosexuality.
BJ: I don't think that's true. I'm not against… Well, let me tell you my version. If schools want to teach homosexuality, I think they should, I think that's fine. What I'm against is any kind of compulsions on teachers to do this that or the other, and that is what, from memory, I didn't like about the repeal. There's far too much proscription already of what teachers have to say and do.
Johnson is not the bumbling fool that he portrays for the media, but neither is he the articulate intellectual with a grasp of detail on political issues. This could, as many are already predicting, come back and bite Cameron on the bum.
Let's hope so, because at the moment we need all the help we can get.
I'm sure the plan is to keep the man on a very tight leash, and that the Tory party has had Boris' new plans drawn up for months in advance - I'd still like to see the odds on the date of his first cock-up though.
On a personal note, congrats on the Abbey ward result. As for the Abbey ward I lived in for a couple of years (Hi, Gary El, S-O-T) - it's now 3 BNP scumbags out of a possible 3 there (makes me feel so proud and really, *really* keen to return)....
May 5, 2008 10:33 PM | permalink
Bob,
I'm sure the plan is to keep the man on a very tight leash, and that the Tory party has had Boris' new plans drawn up for months in advance - I'd still like to see the odds on the date of his first cock-up though.
On a personal note, congrats on the Abbey ward result. As for the Abbey ward I lived in for a couple of years (Hi, Gary El, S-O-T) - it's now 3 BNP scumbags out of a possible 3 there (makes me feel so proud and really, *really* keen to return)....