You're Fired!
This afternoon Boris Johnson goes to City Hall for the first time as Mayor. He will be meeting Sir Ian Blair and Peter Hendy, the head of Transport for London. He doesn't have the executive power to fire Sir Ian, but he can get rid of Hendy. He should take the opportunity now, and start as he means to go on. Boris also needs to make clear that the culture of cronyism at City Hall will end. He should immediately announce the axing of Ken's propaganda sheet, The Londoner.
I am sure that Boris's first 100 days have been planned down to the last detail by his team, led by the excellent Nicholas Boles. Be prepared for a few surprises.
You're never so powerful as you are in your first hundred days as an elected politician. The people of London voted for real change. It's up to Boris to ensure that they get it, and it's not more of the same.
UPDATE: It has been pointed ut that You're Fire contains three words. A disgraceful take for someone with a degree in Linguistics to make! Put it dwn to chrnic fatigue!
60 comments:
Technically that is three words but quite right.
Get rid of Peter Hendy Iain, today? Are you completely bonkers man? Please Boris take Iain's advice and commit an immediate personnal gaffe.
Exploring whether Hendy and himself can work together would be another matter. That would make sense.
Get rid of the London Paper, today? Are you a raving lunatic?
How would Boris then communicate with Londoners in the 25 or so London Boroughs he had not even visited before this campaign?
The signals here would be that Boris' humility last night was a great sham and that he means to wreak havoc from day one.
The signals here would be that Boris' promises to build on achievements would also be a complete sham.
WARNING TO BORIS: Ignore everything Dale says. He is sleep-deprived and at the best of times a bit of an impetuous fool.
I suppose I should bow to your intimate knowledge of what it takes to be an impetuous fool. You really are the Comical Ali of Labour bloggers and make a complete fool of yourslef whenever you leave a comment on here.
Did you not know it was a campaign promise of Boris's to abolish the London Paper (sorry, proganada sheet), thereby saving the taxpayer £3 million? You didn't know because you are, as usual, ill informed. Or impetuous. Or a fool. Or more probably, all three.
Can't agree with you Iain - "You're fired!" is actually three words - so they're the first three words Boris should say to Hendy - Hendy the b****** non-Londoner who got rid of the Routemasters even after they were upgraded to be cleaner than many new buses.
"Get rid of the London Paper, today? Are you a raving lunatic? How would Boris then communicate with Londoners in the 25 or so London Boroughs he had not even visited before this campaign?"
Yes, of course! How can politicians ever communicate with the people free from the distortions of the evil capitalist newspaper owners unless they print their own objective newspaper?
Iain: Boris can abolish the London paper if he wants to. He will then find himself replacing it. Probably at similar cost, called something different. Or use only the Standard which is of course not something read by most Londoners. Whatever, that is a minor point.
The far more serious gaffe you are encouraging Boris to make is to wrongfully dismiss a highly paid and actually rather successful executive before he even has his feet under the table.
Bring it on. Please deal with the personnel matter. Your advice is wrong on that is it not?
Earth Girls Are Easy Chris Paul. Well done! Iain could hardly show himself to be more impetuous and foolish and hair-triggered than writing a reply BEFORE he publishes your point now could he?
You are surely right about Hendy. And Boris would be quite wrong to follow Dale's malicious advice.
Peter Hendy should be sacked because of his incompetence in running TfL and his party political support for Ken Livingstone. Quite simple, really.
I wonder why Ken was in his office for six hours (as reported on TV) yesterday?
Perhaps it would also be a good idea to put the traffic control back in the hands of the professionals. Is there any truth in the rumour that Ken had the traffic lights put out of synch in order to create congestion and so introduce the loss making congestion charge?
Informed as ever, Iain. Your comments on London are presumably based on the fact you don't live there.
Thelondonpaper = freesheet given out at tube stations
The Londoner = Mayor's freesheet
Unless you mean Thelondonpaper should be abolished as a commercial concern, because it is not part of Assoc. Newspapers propaganda wing of the Boris campaign?
Correct, i don't live in London, and thanks for pointing out the error. Mind you, I'd happily abolish the London Paper too. These free paper hander outers are a bloody menace!
The Mayor's freesheet? I pay for it, together with all other Londoners, and it is a waste of money and paper.
The Mayor wants to let Londoners know what he is doing? Do a Press release. There'll be enough Press Officers hanging around, given Leninslime's free-for-all employment policy at City Hall.
Sacking Hendy today would be a gaffe of the highest order. Admit it. That could cost Londoners much of what they might save by Boris shutting a "propaganda sheet" (temporarily) through legal fees and compensation. Liverpool's Lib Dems have been wasting council tax payers money on politically motivated dismissals for the last couple of years. Boris MUST NOT follow your advice.
i dont mind the free paper hander outers - i generally smile, say thanks or "alright mate" and they smile back at me. a humanising experience in what is a huge and sometimes inhuman metropolis.
I notice you don't dispute my points about incompetence or opartisanship.
Is that Chris Paul just an Iain Dale sock puppet whipping up traffic here?
since boris has a classical education, he will be VERY aware of the tale of Heracles and the Augean stables...
go for it Boris - clear it all out.
You think i need to whip up traffic after the last 2 days?! Yesterday I had 300% more traffic than my previous best ever day. Click on Chris Paul's name and his awful blog will be revealed to you.
Iain:
1. I do dismiss you ridiculous and completely unsupported point about incompetence by saying that Hendy has been successful. The introduction of the Oyster Card on time and on budget was surely an example of effective management from TfL and Ken?
2. I have no idea where Hendy's party political sympathies lie. the post will clearly be politically restricted. I will believe you if you tell me Hendy is a socialist or at least a Labour or Ken supporter.
3. If you can point out any example of party political favouritism in the operation of TfL under Hendy that would be a start. For example running more buses unfairly to polling stations in Ken-supporting districts??
4. Saying the new Mayors sums on bendy buses and conductors was way wrong would not count as bias. that would simply be arithmetic. Something that seems to regularly evade Classicists and German?TEFL graduates alike.
PS That's an awful blog Iain that (a) drives more traffic to you than all but 15-20 other blogs and (b) exclusively revealled a repugnant tie in between Tories in Manchester and Hizb_ut-Tahrir.
Well, you lost me for a few hours because I've been asleep!
@Mr Dale
Your website's been a super resource over the last few days. One reason for your increased traffic may well be that several other sites seem to have had technical glitches over the same period: Politics Home, Political Betting, Telegraph Blogs have all been offline/unresponsive at some point. So buy your resident techie a bonus danish :-)
Hey Iain, what was wrong with my 12.30pm comment that you didn't approve it?
The strongest word in it was b******, and even that was asterisked, and other than nitpicking about "You're fired" being three words, the first three words Boris should say to Hendy, I'm in complete agreement with you!
boris's speech last night was a tour-de-force in being humble in victory. truely it will go down in history as one of the greatest victory stump speeches ever.
he's a good man, our boris.
Education minister's school failing:
http://education.guardian.co.uk/primaryeducation/story/0,,2277676,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront
I don't have a degree in linguistics but I'm sure that "you're" is a single word, albeit one created y abbreviating two original words. So your headline was right, iain. Can we just talk about punctuation and grammar from now on instead of election results?
Tom,I can understand why you suggest that, but no deal. Well, not just yet :). By the way, can you email me privately?
Very good blog, by the way. Keep it up. Far better that Tom Watson's, which for some reason seems to have disappeared.
I don't normally subsibe to the idea that the BBC is biase but watching the coverage of Boris on the BBC News after he was elected I'm starting to change my mind.
First they had Polly Toynbee (I guess live form her Villa) who they gave about two minutes uninterrupted time to trash him just after he was announced. Ever since within the first thirty seconds of every report either saying 'will Londoners relate to him' 'is he a idiot' 'will he just be Dave's puppet' etc
It really is pretty appalling.
Slightly off-topc, but I believe that Brian Paddick was less than gracious in defeat.
Has anyone put it up on YouTube yet?
"How would Boris then communicate with Londoners.."
The way all other politicians do, perhaps...?
"You really are the Comical Ali of Labour bloggers..."
Oh, a little harsh! In the end, I think everyone felt a little sorry for Comical Ali.
Not so Chris Paul, it has to be said.
It's been a consistent line of the Conservatives on the Assembly that the GLA group's communications budget is too high and that the Londoner should cease. However I would bet that, four years hence, the communications budget will not be significantly less, and the GLA will have some form of direct communication with Londoners.
Leaving aside arguments over whether the Londoner is propaganda, no Mayor is going to want a situation where Londoners say 'I pay all this money but don't see any evidence you're doing anything'.
PS the last Conservative London leader also had a bad relationship with the official responsible for transport. Fortunately Sir Horace Cutler accepted that Sir Peter Masefield knew far more about transport than he did, and it was Masefield who kept offering his resignation only to have Cutler refuse it.
boris due to get signed in at 2pm... will be on the news channels.
eagerly flicking between news24 and sky right now.
there's something all a bit unreal about all of this. i suppose the nearest equivalent might be the Californians electing Arnie as governor...
either way - it's going to be quite a historic moment.
GO BORIS!
I get the Londoner and it never fails to cheese me off. I don't want Government to tell me what it's doing I want to see actual results.
The Londoner has never told me anything interesting, ever.
Please someone check it out and tell me what it does:
http://www.london.gov.uk/londoner/index.jsp
@Chris Paul:
"I do dismiss you ridiculous and completely unsupported point about incompetence by saying that Hendy has been successful. The introduction of the Oyster Card on time and on budget was surely an example of effective management from TfL and Ken?"
Oyster cards came in 2003. Peter Hendy was appointed Comissioner in 2006. In what way was he responsible for Oyster cards?
You cannot have three words when you are only writing or uttering two syllables. You're fired is two words.
Iain 12:27 - that is the most waspish comment I have ever seen come from your pen!
I picked up on Paddick's lack of graciousness last night. I think it bordered on rudeness after Boris's comments - even Ken spoke well. Just goes to show what LibDems are really like when they don't get their own way. And at around 10% of the vote, I hope they deal with their delusions of grandeur in future elections and don't expect equal coverage with Labour and the Tories.
You've got me started again now after I'd just calmed down!
What Boris is doing at 2 PM is signing the statutory declaration of acceptance of office, together with the undertaking to abide by the GLA Code of Conduct. As the declaration of the result was before midnight on Friday (just), he will not formally become Mayor until midnight on Sunday going into Monday.
Hendy is the son of communist and a minor aristo at that. He also made over £3m selling-off a bus company he and others took over.
He also comes in from Bath pretty much everyday first class, and then cabs it to TfL land. He was not always in Ken's pocket, but is pretty hardcore.
Lots will come out over the introduction of the c-charge. Chief engineer at the time Derek Turner told Ken he was installing the wrong system, finally backed up by the ES's very-late-in-the-day expose, showing they make about 20p per car, per day (plus fines) due to insane admin costs.
A new contract and new tech bought from IBM will allow oyster-card style payments will arrive in November 2009. Boris promised to use the system to make the C-charge variable, depending on the time of day.
As for the light timings...it's true. That and the narrowing of lanes and blocking off of junctions is part of what's known as urban safety management, designed to slow the traffic down and actually put people off driving in certain area.
Trouble is, it cancelled out the advantages gained by reducing the traffic by the super-inefficient C-Charge.
There's huge room for improvement. Imagine a London with free-flowing traffic, c-charge only in the central zone, lower c-charge prices during the day to help shoppers, and a scrapping of street furniture (known as shared space) to give us a much more attractive city.
I was the person who commissioned the design for the new Routemaster that was in the press last December. The company that did it was one of the world's leading bus designers
It is driven by electricity and has ramp access and it can be done. It will be bespoke design for a unique city and they will cost around £200k each, but will have a 20 year design life.
Boris has a great opportunity to transform London's streets.
bbc news - boris just got mobbed by the media , and there are crowds of well wishers applauding him outside city hall!!
@ David Boothroyd
Ken communicated directly with Londoners very effectively and it was through the Londoner. He was regularly on BBC London (both Radio and TV), took part on a phone-in with LBC every month etc.
He never needed to Londoner because he was probably the most assessable and communicative political figure in the UK.
bbc news 24 coverage is toe curlingly biased against boris.
shut them down. abolish the license fee!
Watching the "swearing in". When the Chief Exec of the GLA invited the paid service to give Boris a "warm welcome", I noticed that the met Commissioner could only bring himself to clap about 3 times, with a bit of a grimmace. He's obviously really looking forward to working with BoJo!
And Boris might have a point about the shredding machines at City Hall.
Red kens propaganda sheet should go - as well as 'bendy' Hendy - who is presumably one of the 100 people erning more than £100K at TfL which should be renamed 'Thanks for(the)Loot'.
The new Mayor can publicise activities by press release, I am sure the Spectator will oblige.
Chris Paul is still presumably shell shocked. He sounds about as sane as the 'wotsername' dopy lefty Iain Dale was reviewing the papers with last night.
Hilarious comment about the shredders working overtime. Loving Boris as mayor already.
boris is doing a stormer of a speech right now (news24 and sky)...
lots of laughter and mirth. but deadly serious - he's just laid out a Guiliani like "broken windows" policy.
he's serious - and i think he's going to kick some butt.
Gordon just seen the new Scottish poll figures that put the SNP at 45%.
I totaly agree with you iain. He must have a clean sweep. thats why people voted for him.
He should start with a fresh set of people.
He should reduce spending in all areas to bring the ammout Londoners have to pay.
There is on easy way with the lefties they try and intimidate people with their fear tactics.
I don't think it is a good idea to be telling Boris what to do. Media affliction, I guess, but why not wait to see what he does, and then comment? If he's influenced by media vagaries, he's worthless anyway.
And he isn't worthless. He ran a great campaign. He had to adopt the "serious" face to satisfy the pc brigade, but I didn't vote for him because he got muzzled, I voted for him because years of following his opinions revealed a huge intellect and a genuine commitment to Conservative principles.
It was pure delight to see the humour peeking through at the signing event... he is going to do a great job :)
I'm so glad Ken has gone. Perhaps now he can go and live in Qatar with his good friend Yusuf al-Qaradawi.
By the way, I think "you're fired" is two words as there is not technically a space in you're.
Do you think the deeply illiterate moron Lee Jasper is going to walk into another £117,000 pa job - given that he is not qualified for anything? Will he be keeping his £360 per month council house (which raised his takings from the taxpayers to £121,320 pa)?
How is he going to pay to keep his nine children now? And now that he doesn't have it in his power to award "grants" (payola), will women recipients who are applying for funds still enjoy getting his illiterate, drooling emails?
Does anyone know what skills he brought to his £120,000 sinecure?
Jes' askin' is all ...
Chris Paul, yes you are right, there is no way for anyone to communicate other than via an expensive newspaper you muppet.
Maybe we need some form of free electronic communications like a network or a web thingy that people can look at on their computers. And maybe some sort of voice box that sends sound over the airwaves or maybe some method to get a piece of paper with words on it to our doors when there is something really important to say.
Rex said...
"I wonder why Ken was in his office for six hours (as reported on TV) yesterday?"
May 03, 2008 12:42 PM
Why not? He was still Mayor then.
If you want to get rid of a propaganda sheet, get rid of the Evening Scum (oh, sorry, "Standard").
Bojo must realise that Ken Leavingnow has been handing out jobs to his leftist friends for years now and they will stop at nothing in their efforts to sabotage BoJo at every turn?
The only chance BoJo has is to root out all those leftist saboteurs and fifth columnists quickly! In fact comrade kens whole political staff have to be shown the door in a night wholesale clearance.
Of all the London assembly civil service appointed by the ex comrade Leavingnow I wonder how many are non marxists?
By the time BoJo has cleared out all the spiteful leftists he will be left with about three staff?
Johnny Norfolk said...
"I totaly agree with you iain. He must have a clean sweep. ... He should start with a fresh set of people."
Local government doesn't work like that. It is not easy to get rid of staff. 99% of the staff he inherits will have to stay and getting rid of the other 1% would cost a lot in severance packages.
Verity, why don't you stop imagining that you've got the right to pontificate on everything?
The next thing Boris should do, after axing the communist greasers inhabiting City Hall (or whatever it's called), is cancel the Olympic Games boondoggle.
Do Londoners really want their grandchildren 32 years hence to be still paying for the world's biggest steroid-fest? Montreal has only recently finished paying for the games it held in 1976.
In addition, all the tiny shavings off records will have been finished off in Beijing. No one will be able to shave one millionth of a second off anything any more.
Dump the games and rescind planning permission granted to Ken's terrorist friends for the gigantic mosque that will wreck London's historic skyline.
David Cameron's Mum - I knew instantly that you are a poseur because David Cameron doesn't have a mum. He has a mater.
He should immediately announce the axing of Ken's propaganda sheet, The Londoner.
Yes, god forbid there should be anything to challenge the Evening Sturmer's stranglehold, eh?
Gregg - Oh, does the taxpayer subsidise the Evening Standard? I thought it was a private enterprise outfit, out there in the market place and only gets revenue if people pay for it.
Could you fill us in on why you think taxpayers who don't vote for the socialists - and even those who do - should be compulsorily financing pro-Livinstone propaganda?
Are you on a moron's register somewhere?
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