Boris Johnson

Tubby Isaacs · **Posted:** Sun Jul 15, 2012 2:14 pm

They don't mention David Davis. I'd have thought he was up there.

new puritan · **Posted:** Mon Jul 16, 2012 10:22 pm

This may come as a shock, but it seems Johnson's campaign rhetoric on housing was, er, bollocks.

Quote:

The Government’s ‘affordable rent’ programme allows landlords to charge rents at up to 80% of the market rate. They say that the homes will be let to the same people who previously would have been offered homes for social rent, and that they will receive full housing benefit if entitled (robbing Peter (CLG grant towards new homes) to pay Paul (increased HB cost on substantially higher rents)).

The ‘affordable rent’ scheme is costing hundreds of millions of pounds and an untold amount of additional housing benefit. It is a dramatic shift in policy as Government subsidy for social rented housing has virtually ended. Rent levels are a crucial factor in the scheme. You would therefore be forgiven for thinking that there would be some careful monitoring of the rents being charged by providers.

In the run up to the election the Mayor of London tried to take the sting out of the housing debate by claiming that most ‘affordable rent’ rents would be similar to the old social rent levels and that the average across the programme as a whole in London would be 65% of market rates. He made great play of his efforts to keep rents reasonable.

Last week’s National Audit Office report on the ‘affordable rent’ scheme didn’t pay much attention to the implications for tenants, but it did note that the annual average rent would be £6,552 compared to £4,698 under the previous National Affordable Housing Programme, that the average rent across the whole programme would be 75% of market rents, and it confirmed that ‘in London providers typically planned for rent levels at approximately 65 per cent’. I have taken ‘typically’ to mean average. It strikes me as a statistical oddity that London, which will get more than a quarter of the programme’s homes, will charge 65% of market rent but the national average, including London, is 75%. What does that imply for rents outside London?

http://redbrickblog.wordpress.com/2012/ ... nt-a-clue/

Tubby Isaacs · **Posted:** Tue Jul 17, 2012 3:46 pm

Well spotted. How did Gilligan miss this, eh?

Arnold · **Posted:** Sun Jul 22, 2012 10:05 pm

Miss! Miss! He hit me first!
Don't you just hate it when the Mail edits the headline? Yesterday, Boris was quoted at blaming the US for kick-starting the crisis.

smod · **Posted:** Mon Jul 23, 2012 12:01 am

Another leadership pitch once they are rid of Shiney Dave.

Samanfur · **Posted:** Mon Jul 30, 2012 12:56 pm

How right you are, smod.

I wonder whether he's going to ask any Londoners their opinion on him doing what they actually elected him to do.

oboogie · **Posted:** Mon Jul 30, 2012 1:13 pm

Samanfur wrote:

How right you are, smod.

I wonder whether he's going to ask any Londoners their opinion on him doing what they actually elected him to do

Well he needs to be a part-time MP so that he can challenge Cameron when the time is right.

Abernathy · **Posted:** Mon Jul 30, 2012 1:18 pm

How is he going to get away with that? He might conceivably be able to get himself parachuted into a safe seat, but surely not while he remains mayor?

davidjay · **Joined:** Tue Feb 17, 2009 8:24 pm **Posts:** 3932

Abernathy wrote:

How is he going to get away with that? He might conceivably be able to get himself parachuted into a safe seat, but surely not while he remains mayor?

He's a legend innit?

Malcolm Armsteen · **Posted:** Mon Jul 30, 2012 1:59 pm

He has, allegedly, taken legal advice that being an elected mayor doesn't prevent him from seeking election to the house. He could then either do both jobs or resign as mayor.
Just takes one ambitious Tory to take the Chiltern Hundreds and a seat in the New Lords™.

Winegums · **Joined:** Fri Jan 15, 2010 11:04 pm **Posts:** 734

He's mayor of London, not a part-time shop assistant at the local bakers. How do you part-time represent a constituency and part-time be a mayor of one of the worlds largest cities?

To be honest, I wonder if he even expected to win the last London mayoral election. The Tories have stuffed their PR such that just about anyone but Ken Livingstone would've won. I suppose he would've wanted to preside over a successful olympics, but I think even then he probably had his eyes on Number 10.

The arrogance and child-like "bored with this toy now" attitude he's displaying is astounding. He's the little boy who was never told no, who has now grown into a man with the same expectations.

Tubby Isaacs · **Posted:** Mon Jul 30, 2012 2:48 pm

Livingstone was an MP for a year, until the 2001 election.

There won't be any problem with him doing it, aside for leaving a nasty backlash for the next Tory candidate. But fuck him, eh, Boris?

I reckon the more serious Tory MPs will see through him. The members no doubt think he's wonderful, but he has to come in the first two among MPs for their votes to count. Is that right?

Winegums is dead right. "I can't be bothered with buses and trains and that".

Malcolm Armsteen · **Posted:** Mon Jul 30, 2012 2:51 pm

The more serious Tories won't go for it, he has all the potential to be a bigger disaster than Osborne. But Mensch and a lot of the 2010 intake will lap it up. And he may well be able to do his loveable buffoon act on the nation the way he did on Londoners - or at least the sort of person who thought that calling themselves Jedi on the census and voting Boris 'because he's a legend' was a cool and witty, postmodernist or edgy way to act.

Winegums · **Joined:** Fri Jan 15, 2010 11:04 pm **Posts:** 734

Maybe not immediately, but come the next election I think the Tories are going to be scrambling for someone to put a remotely electable face on the party of selfish evil bastards. The most presentable Tories have been politicians for hardly any time at all, and really Boris is about as good as they're going to get.

oboogie · **Posted:** Mon Jul 30, 2012 4:07 pm

Boris is a media presence, he's a face and a colourful 'character', he's untarnished by the mishandling of the economy, the sale of the NHS, privatisation of education etc
As one commentator noted, on Friday the crowds were chanting his first name, how many Tory PMs has that happened to? Churchill and Thatcher I suspect.
I reckon that makes him a strong candidate.
The more serious Tories will be worrying about how they are going to rebuild the reputation of their party after this disastrous government, I think they'll bite their lips and fall in behind whoever offers them hope.
Being part-time Mayor is not without precedent, we already have a part-time chancellor.

Boris Johnson

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