Friday, May 09, 2008

EXCLUSIVE: Boris's First Act as Mayor...

When Boris sat down at his desk on Monday morning he was presented with a huge press cuttings file, which included loads of articles from the Morning Star. 'Why on earth are you including these?' he asked one of his staff. 'Well,' said the staff member, 'Mayor Livingstone was keen to support the Morning Star'. 'In what way?' asked Boris.

It transpired that the GLA Building had a subscription of forty - yes, forty - copies of the Morning Star delivered every day. Boris's first action as Mayor was to cancel all forty subscriptions to the lefty rag, thereby halving its circulation with one stroke of the mayoral pen. That's what I call the mark of a real Conservative - annoy the leftists and save the taxpayer £10,000 a year at the same time.

51 comments:

Anonymous said...

Add that £10k to Red Ken's taxi bill and we have a substantial saving already.
Jolly good, turkey and ham sarnies all round with lashings of ginger beer.
Good ole Boris.

Anonymous said...

A new day is dawning !!!

Anonymous said...

I think its a saving of just under 9 grand, will Boris be asked to have a column?

Anonymous said...

40 copies of a 60p newspaper published 6 times a week is £7,500 not £10,000. You seem to be using the same calculator Boris did when pricing his bendy bus policy!

Armchair Sceptic said...

I hope Boris cancels the GLA's subscription to the Grauniad too!

Anonymous said...

Will he save £10,000 a year, or just spend it on the ES, which presumably you'd approve of?

Anonymous said...

Stuart, if you can get your newspapers delivered for free please tell me where!

Anonymous said...

"...cancel all forty subscriptions to the lefty rag, thereby halving its circulation .."

Ouch! :)

Anonymous said...

you seem to have got very bitter in victory iain

Anonymous said...

If the papers cost £7,500 and the bill is £10,000. Either someone is on the fiddle or the paper boy is on a nice earner.

Anonymous said...

Looking at a couple of the whinging comments above, Boris has indeed already "...annoy[ed] the leftists."

Long may he continue to do so.

Mulligan said...

Stuart

or the same rounding up formula that Brown applies to his statistics? (where 600,000 becomes a million...)

Anonymous said...

Stuart said...
"40 copies of a 60p newspaper published 6 times a week is £7,500 not £10,000. You seem to be using the same calculator Boris did when pricing his bendy bus policy!"

+ DELIVERY probably = £10,000

Greater Manchester Fabians said...

Yes thats the sort of mayor we need, one that blocks out the thoughts and ideas of those not of the same political mindset as himself.

It'll be interesting which papers he will be willing to subscribe to once he's messed everything up and is being criticised left right and centre.

http://gtrmancfabians.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

I hope he ups his order of the Evening Standard, he owes them a lot.

Anonymous said...

boris ought to have one copy of the morning star, guardian etc delivered if only to see what the polly toynbee's are saying in order to do the opposite

Anonymous said...

"...cancel all forty subscriptions to the lefty rag, thereby halving its circulation .."

That'll leave just enough so each remaining Labour voter in the UK can have one.

Anonymous said...

Anon - I'd be rather surprised if the ES didn't let City Hall have issues for free, unless you can tell me differently?

Anonymous said...

Of course any leftists may want to take a similarly open minded view about Mr Dale's forthcoming publication.

Daily Referendum said...

I see Boris has agreed to a partnership deal with Bloomberg.

He's definitely hit the ground running.

Anonymous said...

It might be worth them checking that they are not also paying for any subscriptions to the Morning Star.

No idea how much they charge because you have to enter you bank or credit card details before it gives the cost which seems a strange way of selling something.

Letters From A Tory said...

Bring it on, Boris. This is only the beginning of your work in cutting the outrageous wastage in City Hall.

Anonymous said...

It's getting better!

I really didn't think that anyone would be seriously overjoyed to the point of rabies as Tories are this week.
It's great fun to watch.
Don't you realise we are toying with you? Show you a bit of power and then pull your favourite toy away (cos we're mean)?

So Boris pulls the morning star away and Boris the Landaner (we can talk cockney sparrow too, you know)emerges as a super hero.
Trouble is no-one knew they were getting it, no-one admits to reading it and no-one actually cares.Nast trick though.

Everyone knows that Boris is not running London. We all know that CCHQ is the boss and Boris is the patsy.

Gary

Anonymous said...

I'll be surprised if Commisar Boris does cancel the Morning Star! Afterall his first action as Mayor was to Ban something, alcohol on London Transport!

See yer 'ol mate Portillo has confirmed he didn't vote for Boris: excommunication due Iain?

Brazen Laird said...

It's not about "annoying leftists", Iain, it's about streamlining the running of London and cutting out the waste. Which, by all accounts, has already been initiated.

Anonymous said...

The Morning Star? Streuth. I suppose just shows Ken for what he was: the 1980's Looney Left, unrecontructed by the Nulab project.

I hope further examples of deranged Scargillite profligacy will also be made public.

Anonymous said...

Greater Manchester Fabians

I am assuming you advocate Boris not only reading the Morning Star but also providing it for everyone else to read. this is not really needed for Boris to take in views at variance with his own.

I take it you would also suggest he takes a BNP newspaper too. Something that is read by as tiny a proportion of the population as the Morning Star, and advocates nationalist socialism that has always proved just as damaging as the international socialism advocated by the Morning Star.

Gary

Where are you? A different country or a different planet? I think few people without Austrian fathers could manage to be so isolated from the real world.

"... we are toying with you ... then pull your favourite toy away ..."

Who is this we? Are you admitting that Labour uses corruption and gerrymandering to gain power, so they have the choice? Do the people have no choice at all?

Anonymous said...

So is that the famous Gary Elsby of internet fame? What's he on about then? barely understood a word.

Anonymous said...

Surely all newspaper subscriptions should be cancelled as most of the news is on the web now.
Anyway what are forty GLA officials doing reading the paper on my time- get back to work

Blackacre said...

I hope Ken was getting a bulk discount, in which case the saving is less than £7,500!

Anonymous said...

Gary, you know who you are, the guy who was beaten by the BNP...

Do you really have nothing better to do that write this asinine rubbish?

Anonymous said...

Even with the deep freeze state of the Labour party at -273K, we see so many of Brown and Ken buddies cropping up here. These comrades
should host Ken a'hammer and sickle ' farewell party and drwon their sorrows with comrade Ken. In the wider world they are as popular as frozen 'so what' Balls.

Anonymous said...

Penfold said...
Add that £10k to Red Ken's taxi bill and we have a substantial saving already.

You are thinking of Tory Brian Coleman's £10,000 taxi bill.

Ken Livingstone hardly ever used taxis.

Anonymous said...

Sounds as though they order 40 copies of all the newspapers. Better to reduce the order to one and just circulate the cuttings.

A saving of about £100,000?

J said...

Pedantically...

"-273K", Norman? :-)

Anonymous said...

He must be redoing the tender for loo-roll supplies.

Greater Manchester Fabians said...

Richard Dale

Please provide the name of the BNP paper you refer to and the circulation figures of both it and the Morning Star. Atleast then what you wrote might make some sense.

Graham

Anonymous said...

they get delivered to the House of Commons too!

Anonymous said...

You can't see this of course but I'm dancing a jig of glee.

Anonymous said...

***Trouble is no-one knew they were getting it, no-one admits to reading it and no-one actually cares.***

No-one actually cares that the London taxpayer was shelling out thousands for a paper that no-one in City Hall was reading???

Anonymous said...

Greater Manchester Fabians: Your blog is garbage.
Gary Elsby: You are insane

Anonymous said...

Fabian

I was not saying there was such a paper. I was asking for your opinion on whether you think it would be appropriate for Boris to take consider the suggestions from the BNP as well as from communists. It was a device highlight a flaw in your argument.

I thought the Fabians were supposed to be eloquent and interested in debate, so I didn't expect to have to explain my rhetorical device.

Scipio said...

Trebles all round at City Hall under Ken - clearly.

Although, when City Hall runs low on toilet paper, the Morning Star might have come in handy!

Anonymous said...

Ken Livingstone may not have spent much on taxis but he blew £30k of taxpayers money on an arse-licking trip to Chavez and Castro.

Anonymous said...

I realise I have struck a nerve but my own nerves are shredded by your outbursts against me.

What's the nerve?

Boris doesn't run Landan, he's a patsy.
ive me seven days and this will be the tag that Boris is tagged with.

We do Boris and therefore, we do the Conservative Party.

This will be headlined in the Mirror, Sun and Landan evening Standard before next saturday.
Call me insane will you! As Jeffrey once barked: 'I'll show you power!'
BORIS IS A PATSY!
Worried?

Gary

Anonymous said...

Gary love, shouldn't you be cutting back on the Strongbow? It's only you who believes the twaddle you write.

Anonymous said...

When the Mayor spent £800K advertising the giving away of 100,000 free Oyster cards he directed £5K of the cash to Tribune and Morning Star.

See:

http://www.london.gov.uk/mqt/public/question.do?id=18423

Anonymous said...

Is 'Greater Manchester Fabians' not just Chris Paul with a new hat?

Anonymous said...

Phil Taylor said...
"When the Mayor spent £800K advertising the giving away of 100,000 free Oyster cards he directed £5K of the cash to Tribune and Morning Star."

So a minute proportion (less than 1%) of the advertising budget was spent via Tribune and Morning Star. Sounds about right.

Anonymous said...

roman said...

"Gary love, shouldn't you be cutting back on the Strongbow?"

Thankfully the good people of Stoke have given the BNP a healthy majority to ensure Gary can never do any actual harm.

Anonymous said...

I trust Boris will take out a subscription to the Tatler? It seems only fair.