UK CONSERVATIVES - LONDON MAYOR BORIS JOHNSON - MAKING MOVE ON PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION

INDEPENDENT ARTICLE ... Moving away, for just a moment, from the cynical manoeuvrings of a politician on the make, it is an insult to Londoners that their Mayor should be trying to combine a vital – full-time – job with his race to the Commons, and thence, he may hope, to No 10. Boris, as he must love being known, clearly thinks he can look after this great world city in his spare time, but he is wrong, and his many apparent protestations that he would not attempt to combine both careers is a poor reward for Londoners who placed their faith in him. More widely, it will have done his reputation no good, nor the Tories’ chances of hanging on to the mayoralty next time around. But what is his reputation? Borisologists are divided about what makes this man tick. They say he is authentic, but is he? Is he, as many say, a clever man playing the buffoon? Or is he in fact a buffoon pretending to be a clever man playing a buffoon, even if he can quote Latin at will? He is not, it is fair to say, the latest attempt by the Conservative Party to ape Tony Blair and create a cloned copy of a leader in his somewhat tarnished image. To that extent, yes, Boris is authentic, original, almost refreshing – and this goes some way to explaining his electoral triumph in London, not usually promising territory for a Tory. ...  will have enjoyed his ridiculing of the Coalition as being like a Conservative bulldog mating with a Liberal Democrat chihuahua. They do not appreciate his liberal line on immigration, however, and the more censorious (i.e., all of them) are prudish about his private life. All of us worry about Boris’s urge to display his jocularity at every occasion, no matter how sombre. Mr Cameron finds it much easier to be, or at least to appear, sincere and “prime ministerial”. Mr Cameron may well not be the competition, however. On the Michael Heseltine principle that the assassin never succeeds in inheriting the crown, Mr Johnson will have to wait for a vacancy to arise (which does not preclude him from trying to create one). If Mr Cameron wins big at the general election, then Boris will have a long wait. If he loses, then Boris could be ensconced in the leadership by around this time next year. http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/mayor-culpa-boris-johnson-is-an-exceptional-talent-but-he-is-doing-voters-a-disservice-in-being-a-parttime-leader-of-london-9652829.html

COMMENT

Boris Johnson's the Mayor of London
Conservatives
Took over from Ken Livingstone
His dad:  European Parliament; European Commission; World Bank.
Oxford Uni / Eton College
Worked at journalism (Times etc), History (book; documentary) - get a load of this:

first documentary series, based on his book The Dream of Rome, comparing the Roman Empire and the modern-day European Union, was broadcast in 2006.

See, it's all about imperialism.  LOL


Haven't followed the links to explore his book etc.

Check out this wikipedia info:

Johnson explained his political philosophy in 2010, linking it to the One nation conservatism of Disraeli:

"I'm a one-nation Tory. There is a duty on the part of the rich to the poor and to the needy, but you are not going to help people express that duty and satisfy it if you punish them fiscally so viciously that they leave this city and this country. I want London to be a competitive, dynamic place to come to work.^"

Of late, Johnson has been the subject of numerous rumours as to the future of his political career, and the possibility that he would stand to be the head of the Conservative Party. In 2012 Grant Shapps claimed that Johnson lacks many of the skills that are needed as the leader of a political party and prime minister.

Stuart Collier

Johnson was criticised in 1995, when a recording of a telephone conversation made in 1990 was made public, in which he is heard agreeing under pressure to supply to a former schoolmate, Darius Guppy, the private address and telephone number of the News of the World journalist Stuart Collier. There is no evidence that Johnson supplied the requested information, even though he promised under duress that he would. Guppy wished to have Collier beaten up for attempting to smear members of his family.

Not known if info passed on and nothing happened to the NOTW journo.

More controversies at the wikipedia link ... rather fancied this one:

"Chicken feed" remark

In a July 2009 interview with Stephen Sackur on the BBC programme HARDtalk, Johnson referred to the £250,000 per annum income he receives from his side job as a columnist for The Daily Telegraph as "chicken feed," suggesting that he wrote the columns "as a way of relaxation ... on a Sunday morning," and that he wrote "very fast" so the columns did not take time away from his duties as Mayor.

The big deal was the recession at the time.  But to me the big deal is the amount of cash in journalism.  Wow!  And the cross-over between journalism and politics.


This is new to me, so I could be wrong:

Get the impression this guy is all about 'imperialism' in one form or another:  his background; his interest in Rome; his Conservative politician status; his Disraeli thing (got impression Disraeli very much the imperialist) .. his 'dynamic' competitive London thing .. ie  it's all about business.