Why Boris Johnson should never lead the Conservative Party

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I'm a Conservative. I've been a member of the Party for nearly forty years - much longer than the current Mayor of London. And I am deeply worried that Boris Johnson may become the leader of what I see as my Party.

Let's be clear that this isn't about the Darius Guppy affair. It's not about Boris's inability to keep his trousers on and his serial infidelity. Nor is about his seeming shallowness, the jolly old Boris image all bluff and bluster, bonhomie and bounce. My concern is about what Boris Johnson has done, tried to do and proposes to do as Mayor of London. For me this is the absolute measure of the man and whether he should be allowed anywhere near the leadership of the Conservative Party.

I'm like lots of you. I love Boris, he is charismatic, exciting, different from the average politician. Boris is one of the people with the ability to make you smile, look up and listen - or at least think you're listening and not rather basking in the sunshine of the Mayor's personality. Only - dare I say it - Nigel Farage comes close to Boris Johnson in that sense of approachability. Boris is that rare sort of politician who'll get taxi drivers to peep their horns, and builders to yell his name out as he passes. And all this makes him the most dangerous sort of demogogue - someone who can persuade us to accept what we wouldn't accept from the regular sort of politician.

I also like the fact that Boris Johnson is Mayor of London and not Ken Livingstone. Boris is a much, much better Mayor of London than Ken. But then my cat would make a better Mayor of London than Ken. I like - or rather Londoners should like - the fact that Boris has managed to persuade the UK government to continue pouring nearly all of its limited infrastructure spending into London. This is pretty effective lobbying - with both Labour and Conservative led adminstrations in Westminster suckered into making London their investment priority.

The problem with Boris is simple. He likes government's bossiness all too much. This is the man who thinks it a good idea to buy some second hand water cannon to hose the unwashed and unwanted off the capital's streets. This is the politician whose first act was to impose a blanket drinking ban on the tube just to get a headline. And this is the leader who has supported bans on drinking outside pubs, curfews and the imposition of bouncers on suburban pubs.

Boris, when he got to be Mayor, looked around for a soulmate and found it in Michael Bloomberg, then the Mayor of New York. And Boris, capitivated either by Bloomberg's charm or his billions (hard to tell really), lapped up Mike's particular brand of municipal fascism, a world of bans and controls, greater police powers and the demonising of the homeless, the fatty and the smoker. This nannying fussbucketry has been embraced with enthusiasm by Boris - a man whose private behaviour belies his political desire to boss other people around about the way they live their lives.

Today the crysalis has cracked open and the complete Mayor Boris butterfly has emerged. What a splendid creature it is - a blonde, bouncy worrywart, a gaudy tousled version of Mike Bloomberg, a municipal fascist with a smiling jokey manner. Today Boris has announced proposals to ban smoking in parks and squares, minimum pricing for alcohol, controls and bans on fast food and a host of officious 'nutritional' information on restaurant menus. I'm sure that, given half a chance, Boris - channelling the Bloomberg model - will be taxing fizzy drinks, closing down street vendors and banning horse-drawn vehicles.

Once upon a time the Conservative Party was about choice, personal responsibility, tolerance and freedom. It seems this only applies - in the world of Boris Johnson - if you choose the approved lifestyles and directed behaviours of London's authorities. If you're a smoker, you're to be hounded even further to the margins of society - not for reasons of health but because Boris Johnson has decided - urged on by the health fascists - that you are not normal. And if you want to start a business selling kebabs or burgers, you'll be excluded from much of the capital's high streets by the planners.

This is not the Conservative Party I joined as a fifteen-year-old in 1976. But I am watching as privileged silver-spoon chewing men like Boris Johnson swallow the anti-choice, anti-freedom line of public health directors, chief constables, doctors and council chief executives. I am watching as the political party I have given so much to is destroyed by people who think there's something right in telling people they aren't normal because they smoke. People who want to give the police military hardware because they've lost the trust of big parts of the population.

There are still plenty of people in my party who still believe in choice, independence, freedom and personal responsibility. It's just that Boris Johnson isn't one of them. And if he - god forbid - ever leads my party, I shall have to think long and hard about whether to stay.

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Boris Island is a really stupid idea and would be an obscene waste of money

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OK so I’ve a little interest in the subject – my parents live on Sheppey and my sister lives in Rochester (or is it Strood – these places blend into one glorious Medway mush). Why on Earth are we even considering spending something like £50 billion on building an airport in the Thames estuary?

Apparently it’s because Brazilians would just love it!

Last year, Mr Johnson published a report claiming that an airport in the Thames Estuary would lead to billions of pounds of investment from countries such as Brazil and China. It stated that the additional hub airport would radically increase foreign direct investment into Britain from fast – growing developing countries.

So let’s have a think about this then. London needs new airport capacity – I’m not one of the greeny-greeny, lentil-knitters who think air travel is an unalloyed evil. But why on earth don’t you put it at Heathrow? You know, where there’s already an airport, where the public transport and road networks exist and where the big airlines want to go?

Surely, if we want to increase capacity we should do so at the most economics rate – so here’s the comparison:

Building Boris Island:   £50 billion

Building a third runway at Heathrow:  £8 billion

The idea of a floating airport in the Thames estuary is beyond stupid, it would be (rather like High Speed 2) a scandalous waste of public money. And comparing the situation in London to massively land-poor places like Hong Kong or Singapore is utterly misleading.

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Copyright, patents and bloody lawyers

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I'm a fan of copyright and the protection of intellectual property - given that I'm sitting in a house paid for from earnings in publishing, advertising and marketing it's hard not to take such a view. The creators of something do have the right to seek protection from those who would exploit that creation without permission. And as we all know the rights we have - and the protection of those rights don't come for free.

But there is a real problem with our copyright and IP laws - a problem that isn't solved by Peter Mandelson sucking up to billionaire yacht-owners. They are being turned into tools of suppression rather than protection. Just take the case of the Underground Restaurant - a charming institution that I've never eaten at (for no reason than it being in London a place I try to avoid most of the time).

Today Ms Marmite Lover the proprietor (if that's the right world for the organiser of a transitory, peripatetic eatery) told us that lawyers representing the London Underground were unhappy with her use of the word "underground" and (I assume) a mash-up of the iconic London Underground logo.

This follows on from lawyers representing Warner Brothers threatening dire retribution if a Harry Potter theme was used for one restaurant event. I mean exactly how does that damage the brand?

So would you like to join me in writing to the Chairman of Transport for London - the lovely Boris Johnson asking him to call off his lawyers and tell his officers to focus on rather more important matters (which you may all choose according to you preference)

Boris Johnson
Mayor of London
Greater London Authority
City Hall
The Queen's Walk
London SE1 2AA
mayor@london.gov.uk

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