Boris Johnson And Hillsborough

There is a popular misconception, that Boris Johnson, London Mayor, onetime Tory MP and ex-editor of the awful Spectator, is somehow cuddly and charming.

However, it is, as with many politicians mannerisms, put on to give him a softer more pleasing appeal.

The real Boris Johnson is shown by his initial approval of this 2004 Simon Heffer article:

The extreme reaction to Mr Bigley’s murder is fed by the fact that he was a Liverpudlian. Liverpool is a handsome city with a tribal sense of community. A combination of economic misfortune – its docks were, fundamentally, on the wrong side of England when Britain entered what is now the European Union – and an excessive predilection for welfarism have created a peculiar, and deeply unattractive, psyche among many Liverpudlians. They see themselves whenever possible as victims, and resent their victim status; yet at the same time they wallow in it. Part of this flawed psychological state is that they cannot accept that they might have made any contribution to their misfortunes, but seek rather to blame someone else for it, thereby deepening their sense of shared tribal grievance against the rest of society. The deaths of more than 50 Liverpool football supporters at Hillsborough in 1989 was undeniably a greater tragedy than the single death, however horrible, of Mr Bigley; but that is no excuse for Liverpool’s failure to acknowledge, even to this day, the part played in the disaster by drunken fans at the back of the crowd who mindlessly tried to fight their way into the ground that Saturday afternoon. The police became a convenient scapegoat, and the Sun newspaper a whipping-boy for daring, albeit in a tasteless fashion, to hint at the wider causes of the incident. “

So when next you think of bumbling Boris Johnson, remember Hillsborough, remember Liverpool and don’t forget how he edited the Spectator. He’s lower than vermin.

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Livingstone Defeated By The Web

Rob Marchant has an astute piece up at the New Statesman on Ken Livingstone’s mayoral defeat.

How politicians have to realise that modern technology allows their every action and word to be scrutinised and verified. So, if politicians try to play it fast and loose, saying one thing here and another there then they will soon be caught out.

In fact, it holds true for all those in the public eye. Be more careful what you say and to whom.

Rob argues:

“The free-and-easy availability of information makes it easier to catch politicians out: and if you speak as carelessly as the Labour candidate always has, you will be caught out not once but repeatedly; which is what has happened. Trust, or the lack of it, is what stopped the Livingstone bandwagon in its tracks. That’s the beauty of twenty-first century politics: it requires politicians who say the same to everyone.

In short, it is perhaps Livingstone’s failure to adapt to this new world that has most contributed to his astonishing achievement: of gifting a campaign, which should really have been won, to his enemies, on a very good night for Labour. “

London 2012: Ken Lost It, Boris Didn’t Win It.

The old political adage that elections are lost, not won seems to apply to the London Mayoral race of 2012.

Boris Johnson has managed to win the position of London Mayor, in the face of a countrywide defeat for the Tories.

Part of it has been personality, partly keeping his head down and the other, the benefit of running against Ken Livingstone.

Unlike the GLA results, natural Labour supporters did not flock to Ken Livingstone’s campaign.

On paper they should have, his policies seemed good and promised much.

However, the political baggage that Livingstone drew along from his questionable tax activities to his communalism soured many people’s attitudes towards him.

In the last few years of his previous administration, Livingstone showed an insensitivity and arrogance which were his undoing.

Rob Marchant, a solid Labour member and previously a Labour Party manager, was just one who felt he couldn’t vote for Ken.

There were many more:

“Despite a late wobble, Johnson was predicted to have secured a four-point lead on first preferences in London, enough to protect him even if the bulk of second preferences of other candidates went to his dogged Labour rival, Ken Livingstone. Labour activists rounded on Livingstone for crassly insulting Jewish voters. It was pointed out that in seats with strong Jewish communities, such as Barnet, the Labour candidate outpolled his Tory rival by 21,000, yet in the mayoral election in the same seat Johnson beat Livingstone by 24,000.”

But let us not weep for Ken Livingstone, he’s not poor or without earnings.

If nothing else he can prostitute his principled and work for Press TV, again.