Filed under: Life Under Boris
As often happens with the newly converted, Boris is now piously preaching to the rest of us on all matters green, for example in his latest Telegraph column on his way to the sideshows at the Copenhagen Summit. Not that he necessarily practises what he preaches. For a start, it would have been better if he had made the effort to get to Copenhagen by train via Brussels rather than on a short-haul flight.
Nor was it clear what he was doing there. Telling the world how London shows the way with retrofitting public buildings and promoting electric cars is all very well, but Boris can take little credit for the former policy, which was launched under the previous Mayor. As for electric cars, it is not at all clear that the Mayor is in a position to lead on this, given that the vast majority of charge points will have to be on suburban roads controlled by local authorities and not on the TfL red routes where we rightly have little off-street parking. And Boris fails to explain what the source of supply for the electricity will be. Is it to be from renewable energy sources or from the sources we are already using? If the latter, then even if electic cars would reduce noise and air pollution they would contribute little to reducing our carbon emissions.
And whilst Boris is preaching to the world about London’s achievements, we should not lose sight of the fact that, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s recently published European Green City Index, we are only a middle ranking city when it comes to greenery – in 11th place, just behind Paris. That’s the reality: in the European cities league table we occupy an equivalent position to Fulham or Sunderland in the Premier League, not Chelsea or Man United. Quite honestly only the host city Copenhagen, which comes out top of the Green City Index, is entitled to go preaching to the rest of the world on what cities can do to reduce their residents’ combined carbon footprint.
While he has a look at the tables in the Green City Index and London’s position in them, Boris should also take time out to reconsider his neo-Malthusian views on population growth as a cause of potential environmental catastrophe. (“We are replicating too fast,”, he tells his Telegraph readers, “hurtling towards nine billion souls on the planet like bacteria multiplying on a Petri dish.”) While the Evening Standard has highlighted how this does not fit very well with Boris himself having four kids (which of course is a personal choice), a more fundamental criticism is that the perspective of disaster caused by rising population has been discounted on numerous occasions before in history.
As I wrote about advocates of neo-Malthusianism in an earlier post:
“What they do not want to admit is that the fertility rate of half the world is now 2.1 or less, the magic number consistent with stable population, and that it’s expected to fall below this level between 2020 and 2050. (See the recent article in the Economist.) That’s not surprising as poor countries are going through the same demographic transitions that rich ones went through, but at an earlier stage in their development and much more quickly.
“As for environmental damage, the poorest people in the world like the Bangladeshis are producing at most 0.3 tonnes of CO2 emissions per capita annually, whereas a US citizen produces 20 tonnes. So, while it’s clear that if the poor countries recreate the same consumption patterns as the US we will certainly have some problems to deal with in the future, at present that is a distant prospect. It is the environmental damage caused by the developed countries that is the immediate challenge.”
Boris’s time in Copenhagen would have been better occupied advocating that cities should be party to any agreement, given that 75 per cent of the CO2 emissions originate from cities and the human race has reach a point now that 50 per cent of it now lives in these huge urban centres. Particularly now that nation states have proved unable to agree amongst themselves on the way forward after the Kyoto agreement, Boris should be calling for cities to step into the breach. Now that would be some leadership!
December 19, 2009
Oops – another environment report fails to appear on time
Last week my office was informed that the Mayor’s draft Waste Management Strategy will not now be available for consultation till the 18th of December, when we had been expecting it to be released at the beginning of the week and it had originally been scheduled for publication back in the Summer. In this instance I’m told it’s the lawyers who have stopped the release of the document, suggesting something must have gone badly wrong for them to get involved so late in the day.
Unfortunately, this delay is par for the course with the Mayor’s environmental strategies and consultations. Boris’s Environment Direction of Travel statement was due in the Spring but was not published till July, while his draft Water Strategy which was also due in the Spring was not published till August. Boris’s draft Climate Change Adaptation Strategy was another publication due in the Spring but it has yet to see the light of day. His draft Air Quality Strategy was due in the Summer but was not published till October, while his Climate Change Mitigation and Energy Strategy was due in the Autumn but has still not been published.
What does this say about the ability of the Mayor’s office to progress environmental concerns? Not much at all is the short answer, but this is perhaps to be expected from an administration that has cut its environment team from 41 posts to 24 and now relies on outside consultants to do most of the work.
As I have remarked before on this blog, no amount of charm, bluster and hot air from Boris on green issues can substitute for making an impact and a real difference to the environment. The Mayor’s credibility has already been seriously undermined here. So much for voting blue and going green.
Summary table of delays
November 23, 2009
As an Assembly Member I am accustomed to a close-up view of Boris at Mayor’s Question Time at City Hall, but I quite literally had a ringside seat for his appearance at the Mayor’s Cup boxing tournament at Porchester Hall this past Friday night, which I attended in support of the All Stars Boxing Club who hosted the event.
While Boris is happy to turn up to such events in search of a photo-opportunity, it is not at all clear what practical support he’s offering to the club, despite the pledges of financial assistance he made during his election campaign. Indeed, when I questioned the Mayor about it last month, I got a distinctly non-committal response. While the Mayor is evidently reluctant to offer the club financial assistance, the three local councillors certainly have done so by giving £5000 from their ward budget.
Truth be told, the City of Westminster Council could also help by CPOing the premises in Harrow Road where the All Stars Boxing Club is based, but that would mean admitting their folly in selling it off in the first place a few years back.
In the meantime Friday’s event rather died a death after Boris’s brief appearance, which does not bode well for the long term future of the Mayor’s Cup. The least Boris could do is assist with the marketing, brand the event with the mayoral logo and do his hosts the courtesy of staying for the whole evening.
The most telling point was that there was no show from the new heavyweight champion of the world, Londoner David Haye, who had attended last year. Clearly he’s a bigger figure in the boxing world than the Mayor of London, and what was more embarrassing was that the Mayor’s office made out Haye was coming when he was actually in Cyprus taking a well-earned break with his family. I certainly know who the punters came to see but I am not sure Boris did.
November 22, 2009
Now I’m not one for watching EastEnders (it’s enough to put you off living as, quite honestly, if that’s a reflection of real life who would want to live?). But does this fantasy of an East End in which the ethnic diversity bears more of a resemblance to Havering than to Tower Hamlets really need Boris Johnson having a cameo role to provide authenticity?
It’s certainly a coup for Boris, being portrayed as a pretty straight guy on such a popular show. But since when has it been in the BBC’s remit to influence the public’s perception in this way? As the Labour group on the London Assembly has pointed out, the guidelines on political impartiality that apply to the BBC’s current affairs programmes should also apply to a mass entertainment programme like EastEnders.
The BBC claims the Mayor’s office is “politically neutral”, which ignores the fact that the London mayoralty has become one of the most hotly contested elections in the UK. Perhaps the BBC’s drama department needs to check with the politics department for confirmation!
The fact that EastEnders previously refused publicity for a genuinely non-political GLA recycling initiative under Ken Livingstone, on the grounds that the material featured the Mayor of London logo and was therefore too political, underlines the absurdity of the Beeb’s argument. The Beeb should always be even-handed and consistent when dealing with political figures, not turning down some and promoting others.
The Beeb claims Boris’s presence is based on the recent narrative of the pub owner Peggy Mitchell contesting some local election. If that’s the case, then why not give the local election commissioner a walk-on part?
Of course, that wouldn’t generate the same level of attention as a high profile figure like Boris, which was certainly one motive for the decision to feature him on the show. Nor do the Beeb want to stand in the way of actor power, as it appears the offer of a role to Boris was the result of a personal approach from Barbara Windsor. More fundamentally, perhaps, the BBC are probably anticipating a Cameron victory in the next general election, fear a possible Tory attack on the licence fee, and want to curry favour with their future political masters.
Whatever the explanation, when you add this latest scandal to the BBC’s evident willingness to give free publicity to fascists, you can only say that it knocks one more nail in the coffin of the right-wing myth about the BBC’s supposed “liberal left bias”.
October 1, 2009
Boris is right to suggest that government ministers should get out of their cars (Daily Telegraph, 31 August 2009), certainly in central London. But he’ll have more trouble persuading his fellow Tories to use public transport than he cares to imagine.
While the quotation attributed to Margaret Thatcher that anyone who travelled by bus was a failure in life may be apocryphal, it accurately reflects the philosophy of Tory politicians, many of whom are hooked on their perks such as taxi expenses. Here at City Hall, Brian Coleman has become notorious for his use of taxis, both as London Assembly Member for Barnet & Camden and as Chair of the fire authority LFEPA. Indeed Boris’s own expenses claims for taxis last year didn’t look too good either.
Maybe Boris needs to get his own house in order before he starts telling colleagues in parliament how to go about travelling when carrying out their political responsibilities.
September 1, 2009
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