Though Cowards Flinch

Now it begins.

Conservative loser Kwasi Kwarteng has come out on Comment is Frightening to demand that Boris Johnson, who is apparently brains of Britain, should become an articulate opponent of the “neo-Trotskyite” RMT. He should roll back the bureaucracy of the police by getting rid of stop and account forms. He should oppose disastrous public private partnerships…though presumably that means he should find a way to further marketise and exclusively privatise just these things.

Well, to pull off the first leg of this particular spider, will people for the love of smeg stop bandying around words they clearly don’t understand? Kwasi Kwarteng may think Boris is just spiffing but, using words like “neo-Trotskyite,” I’m not convinced Kwasi himself has much of an intellect. It’s like the Thatcher years re-run in short-form, “the enemy within” – yes, damn all those revolutionaries, seeking to overthrow capitalism by such acts as…trying to salvage a decent wage. If this guy actually read some Trotsky, he’d wet himself.

Having spoken to Boris and listened to him answer questions first hand, with no television cameras, I can honestly say that the man is just as buffoonish as he is made out to be. His performances on Newsnight and other shows during the election were almost as bad. He was the shadow spokesman for education when I spoke to him and he fudged and fumbled his way through virtually every question that came his way from the assembled NUS leaders. The inspiring qualities of a conviction politician? I think not.

Boris’ election victory owes less to his own character and more to a combination of several features, beginning with the idiocy of this Labour government and ending with the appalling Evening Standard. If only Livingstone had won, revenge would have been sweet and London need not have renewed its contract for the Evening Standard’s delivery. Press freedom is one thing, but the hatchet jobs which the Evening Standard performed were worthy of Robespierre. The Conservatives are the “progressive party”? Andrew Gilligan should be horse whipped.

The BNP now sit on the London Assembly.

All I can say is that Labour, the Greens and the Lib-Dems, who could form a majority in the Assembly, need to bloody well pull the finger out. The Conservatives can get by in the Assembly merely by expecting that a few New Labourites and some Lib-Dems will habitually vote with them. We need to make sure that that does not happen. This is the one chance for progressive government in London and we need to take it, because Tory HQ will not simply allow Beano Boris to sit on his laurels. The Lib-Dems lost their flagship, Labour lost theirs, now is a Tory time to shine.