Be Excellent To Each Other

Read this, about the London Mayoral election, and y'know, Boris.

I'm not quoting any because that would be rather like my recommending a sumptuous meal, and then flinging a random chunk of it at your face willy-nilly.

No matter how daft Boris is, Livinstone is drunk with power and a very nasty piece of work to boot. Boris is the lesser of two evils.

Anti-Boris dossier: here.

I don't live in London, but no way would I vote for a politician who's actually massively prejudiced against everyone who isn't white and privately-education. I know the Newtmeister's dodgy, but heck, I'd rather have a former hard-left sell-out that a hardcore posh Thatcherite in charge. Britain got so fucked up and incompetently run during most of the 20th century because we were run by rich arrogant buggers like B. Johnson who considered it their birthright to have political power.

Citation needed. Any mention of concentration camp guards will be given the contempt it deserves.


Boris is a racist, right wing lunatic who is either genuinely inept or just a cunt.

And CUS - you're absolutely right. I love Brooker. He manages to continue in his excellently funny way of old but still make fairly serious, insightful points. It's like... satire or something.

I tend to agree.
Brooker's anti-Boris stance was a bit weak, to say the least. It basically boiled down to 'Boris is a thick Tory git. Vote Ken, the lovable fluffy little pussy cat of local politics'.*

*even if his claws are a bit sharp.

Personally I'd throw the lot of them in prison, but Livingstone is a man who's only agenda in life is furthering his own powerbase. Tax with one hand, but make sure you do enough fluffy stuff so people still love you.

And if I can't throw the lot of them in prison, the least I would do would be to put a 2 term limit on being in office.

A new face is all I ask. If Boris screws up, he'll be out on his ear in 4 years. It can't be worse than 25 quid congestion charge but still standing room only on the tube (which is what things will be like under Ken in 4 years time).

Kick him out, vote him back in again in 4 years. But don't vote him back in now because third terms are bad things and all the warning signs are there.

I currently pay £135 every month, just to go to work and back, it takes me nowhere else - there is nowhere to go, on that ticket. For this I get to work comfortably enough, but in the evening it's always, always standing room only, on an Arriva Trains Wales service, for half an hour. Then I get to wait around for fifteen minutes in the hail (like tonight) before a slow and boring twenty minute bus ride back. If I am really lucky and nothing goes 'wrong'. Like the train being 20 minutes late due to hail, like tonight.

Today I discovered that the line I take to work is closed next week. 'Some road vehicles will be provided, customers are advised to add an hour to their journey'. I've checked with the station for my specific needs and yeah, I'm screwed. This massively fucks with my evening commute, and means that the only way I can get to work on time next week if to wake up an hour and a half earlier, fork up an extra £6 a day for an early taxi, and get to work half an hour earlier to stand outside and wait for people to arrive. So that's an extra £30 charge to nestle snugly against the £135 I'm already forking out for this awesome service.

Which I can't even use to say, take a slight detour on the way home, and take me to the shops; or to perhaps explore the local area and learn more about Shropshire. As I could if the money was going towards either a car or, say, some kind of underground mass transit system.

Having used it a couple of dozen times now, I would fucking love to have to put up with the tube each day. If that's Red Ken at work then please send him up north when you're done.

Wanting a new face for the sake of it is what landed Sweden with a more right wing prime minister when the current lot were doing absolutely fine.



What are you expecting him to do in his third term? Declare London an independent Communist state or something? You're sounding a little paranoid. He's investing in public transport - this is a good thing. And any problems with the Tube aren't his fault, remember, as Blair wouldn't give him control of it.

Can't we vote in a mad hirstute Northen industrialist Victorian to start a gigantic project to overhaul the tube with new cathedral like tunnels that promise a capacity increase of four times (just in case) for a massive amount of money and huge inconvenience? Just like in the old days?

I for one would be happy to watch and laugh from the provinces.

What exactly is he investing in public transport? He doesn't have the tube, he doesn't even have trains. He has buses. He's done two things with buses - introduce the bendybus against all advice only now to withdraw it because they are enormous death machines, and give select people free bus travel. The main effect of the free bus travel is now that kids who would walk one stop's distance, getting a bit of exercise, now cram onto the buses. I wholeheartedly endorse free bus travel for the old, jobseekers, and disabled - that's the one good thing he's done.

All that's left is to bang on about Crossrail - ignoring the fact that it will be a complete irrelevance to 90% of Londoners.

He's increased the number of buses, and bus use has gone up. Good things.

Bendy buses not so much, no. But the kids on buses was a good thing, seeing as to do anything in London you have to travel and kids don't have scads of cash.

But the difference is that the extra bus use is from all the kids taking the bus for short journeys that they'd previously have walked. He needs to get people out of their cars and onto buses, and that ain't happening.

You're wandering from the main point, which is that Boris is a bigger cunt.

You emigrated, so you don't get a say.

Come on, he takes a shed load of money from the congestion charge but can't even innovate. His sole contribution, other than self publicity, is the bendy-bus which even the most simple minded fool could see would be a bad idea on Londons narrow streets let alone running them without conductors (which I believe is what is happening).

So I need to work in London for the day. If I am lucky I can just about shave the kit down so I can struggle up on the train and then get a taxi. Of course, if it's peak I pretty much have to go first class as the disgusted looks you get with a fuck-off huge trolley of equipment are quite off-putting.

I hate driving into London so it is always the last resort, I don't need a congestion charge to put me off thank you. All it's done is stick more people on a rail and tube system that can't cope with it. It's just a cash cow for Ken to raise money for his schemes. Ken knows people have to work in the city, and he uses it as a cash cow and will just keep on raising the congestion fee to give himself more power.

And what congestion has Ken reduced in the city? Well I still see the flashy cars driving around and the vans. Not many average cars though. Ironically Ken has priced the people he claims to champion off the road. Nice one Ken! Meanwhile Tristan in his Lamborghini wouldn't give a shit if you taxed him 50 quid a day frankly. And of course, Ken will keep on extending the charge area outwards. I just find all those new cameras and "low emmissions" zone stuff just a little suspect. He'll have that zone out to the M25, mark my words.

Why not stick some kind of park and ride in? Do something within his power to make things easier? Secure car parks all around the edge of town where you can park up and hop on a bus or train? Fuck me, this isn't rocket science.

Ken Livingstone, man of the people, for affordable city centre housing, who I was told lives in a million quid apartment in the Barbican.

The man is so full of shit I don't know where to begin. At least Boris doesn't really pretend to be anything other than a bumbling cunt. Ken is so two faced it would be no surprise if that two faced child born in India the other day was yet another of his offspring.

But somehow Boris is better and will fix everything?

As I said before, the best thing that can happen is that Ken can be slapped down and can come back in 4 years with some fresh ideas and a slightly smaller head. At the time he was the best option but no longer.

Will Boris be better? Possibly. Will he have new ideas? Possibly. Will he screw up? Possibly.

Will Livingstone extend and increase the congestion charge? Almost certainly. Will there be more corruption allegations? Possibly. Will the public tire of him and firmly boot him out in 2012? Certainly.

Things aren't as clear cut as 8 years ago. Livingstone appears to be a man who comes up with the best ideas when he's down and out. In the past he went on a huge ego trip with the GLC (and all that was as much about Kens ego as the GLC itself) and he appears to be doing it again. The one thing I can say for Boris is that, whatever the job may be for him, it's not an ego trip.

He's certainly the model of retiring dignity, that's true.

I went to Fuengirola when my Dad was ill (that's where he lives) they have bendy busses there, they don't have conductors, they have some really narrow streets, they manage to get them round really easy. When the news came over that London had tried them and then abondoned them, they laughed. Lots.

They just need better drivers.

Malc

Possibly. I suspect the roads are less congested and there are less cyclists and pedestrians as well.

In addition the reason why the busses need conductors is to stop people behaving badly at the back of the bus. Probably not as much of a problem elsewhere.

Unless "badly" means something really, really nasty then it's a fucking annoyance everywhere that I've ever been in the UK. Definitely, definitely worse since mobile phones. *twitches a bit*

Charlie Brooker Is Right About Everything.

You bastard. I seriously fucking couldn't get that out of my heads last time I heard that, and I'd just about managed to forget it until now

I couldn't understand a single word of that post on the guardian website.

I'm normally a big Brooker fan, but that article was utterly shite. He's falling for the exact 'trap' that he believes the LOL-merchants are.

His argument comes down to three things:

1 - He hates Tories
2 - He doesn't want someone who looks silly on TV become mayor
3 - He hates Tories

Given that his reaction to #2 is the exact same form of reaction as those who see him on TV and think, "He seems like a funny bloke", his article could be replaced by him just saying, "I HATE TORIES!!!!!!"

0.046 bananas, out of 83.

The general perception of "BORRIS" seems to be as a bit of a buffoon, prone to putting his foot in his mouth, but also in a sort of charming / laughing / no brain sort of sense. Amongst both people who like him and those who don't.

So people would vote for him, or not vote for him, based on largely the same understanding of the man, but will either say "oh go on, it's a bit of a laugh, and it'd be funny to have someone like that replace the serious and tough acting Livingston". A bit like a radio DJ getting a shit record to number one just to irritate people.

Or, there's other people, like Brooker I guess, that are pointing out that it's actually a serious business[tm] running London, and you empirically don't want a clown doing it. Especially not a hateful Tory clown.

I don't think it's an unreasonable point to make myself, and he did it in a funny way, so I'm giving him at least 7 million bananas, for that reason.

Good piece from Brooker, but it's preaching to the converted a bit, innit?

Oh. Couldn't he have just said that?

Well he's the guy who's got a column in the Guardian based on very funny bile-filled rants so I'll assume he knows what he's doing.

The biggest 2 problems with Boris is he couldn't find London on a map of the M25 and continually promises to fix things the Mayor has absolutely no control over.

Except he's clearly not a clown, regardless of how he comes across. Editor of the Spectator for six years, MP for seven years and Shadow Secretary for Higher Education for two. OK, so maybe Henley isn't the toughest seat for a Tory to hold, but that he took it over from Heseltine is a clear indication that he's not just the party 'funny man'.

Livingstone just thinks it's still 25 years ago, mainly because the only things he's done between the GLC being abolished and getting elected as mayor were being in a Blur video and advertising cheese.

Absolute fucking bollocks. He's an utter clown.

Or, if not, that means he must be a complete and utter scheming cunt who likes to give the impression of being a clown to hide the racist, right wing reality.

Either way there's a big clown element there.

That cunt George Galloway woke me up NO LESS THAN THREE TIMES on Sunday, driving up and down the high street on his tour bus, shouting the odds when I was trying to catch up on some sleep.

I couldn't disagree with you more about the kids free on buses being a good thing.

When I was at school you could get a free bus pass if:

You lived more than 3 miles from your school

AND

your family couldn't afford to pay for your bus travel.

I ticked both these boxes in the year that I lived with my mother and so I got a free bus pass.

When I moved back with my grandparents I was only two miles from the school. They would have given me bus fare but I preferred to walk. Now, kids get on the buses to go two stops from their school to their houses - the buses at this time are unusable by most adults as they are so packed with kids that you can't get on if your stop is a stop or two after the school. The government banging on about child obesity and then saying 'but please, don't bother yourself to walk anywhere', is a bit of a joke.

I agree with you, but bear in mind that the only realistic alternatives these days is either for them to be individually ferried there in their parents' SUVs, or to attempt to walk the two stop distance and be run over by an SUV.

Ideally, you'd want to clear the streets of cars and busses altogether and make everyone walk or cycle. But one step at a time, or something.

If a child has to walk further than 50 yards in this country then they get snatched by paedophiles.

There's no actual evidence for this, but it is scientific fact.

That too. See? It's a basic health and safety issue.

True story, I had dinner with KL at the house of commons many years ago. I liked him.

Although he did get you pregnant............

It's just a joke. The last time I got on a London bus it was like travelling through one of the inner circles of Dante's inferno.

I'm really amazed at the number of people on here who still think Ken, with his autocratic style and his eager embrace of Big brother technology is a good thing.

The idea of voting Tory has always pained me, but if that's what it takes to remove the man, so be it.