We Need to Talk About Boris

London will endure, it always has, but why should it when on the 3 May 2012 we can Sack Boris?

Four years of Boris Johnson's mayoralty has seriously affected my mental health. He has now become the centre of my paranoid fantasies, I see his malevolent presence wherever I go in London.

I believe him to be the man who stands on the wrong side of the escalator, the man who suddenly stops in the middle of Oxford Street to stare at the buildings. I suspect he believes that Oyster Cards taste of oysters and uses a creased paper ticket to get about.

He waits until he's at the ticket barrier to get his ticket out and then repeatedly puts it in the wrong way round. It is Boris who tries to cram himself onto the train before anyone's had a chance get off.

In short I imagine him as a tourist. The reality of course is worse than that.

Boris the Baron

As we rapidly approach the Mayoral election he reminds me more of a well-fed Colonial Governor of London shipped in by the Tories from far away Henley to maintain control of the natives. Flying into town from his weekend pursuits he sits on high in his City Hall fiefdom ensuring that his wealthy backers are placated.

Bus fares for our city's poorest have risen 50% whilst he cut the Western Congestion Charge Zone losing revenue of tens of millions a year from London's richest area.

Boris has had more meetings with bankers than the police; he undersold the sponsorship for the cycle hire scheme by millions to Barclays. He is the anti-Robin Hood, stealing from the poor to give to the rich.

Boris the Cad

Another overlooked element of Boris's old-fashioned villainy is his caddishness. He is a blaggard of Austein proportions, an ageing Wickham still adept at leading innocent voters astray.

In his 2008 electoral retelling of Pride and Prejudice he whispered sweet nothings in our ears whilst accusing his opponent of all his own flaws. The less superficially charming but more honorable Mr Darcy figure of Ken Livingstone would soon see the allegations against him disproven but not soon enough to stop caddish Boris profiting from his deceit.

It's worth dredging up the list of a few of the broken promises to reflect upon his treachery. There was his promise to sit on the Metropolitan Police Authority and not cut police numbers, not to raise the Congestion Charge, to negotiate a no strike deal with the rail unions and a pledge to keep ticket offices open at underground stations.

He either partially or totally failed to keep these promises whilst all the time pissing money up the wall on pet projects such as spending £11m on eight new 'Routemaster' buses and his ridiculous 'Airport Island'.

This is man who has barefaced cheek to repeatedly claim credit for projects predating his election victory by years, be it train upgrades, Crossrail or the London Overground. A man who called allegations of phone hacking 'codswallop' and whose deputy is accused of obstructing the investigation, will happily pronounce himself the '"father of the Leveson Inquiry".

Boris the Coward

Mayor Johnson also falls into another cliché of upper-class villainy; the self-interested coward. Pushing aside women and children and trying to bribe his way onto a lifeboat, he is happy to cut the ribbon but quick to desert when the ship is sinking.

Running on a ticket of accountability and transparency Boris cut the time he could be questioned by the London Assembly. He avoids public debates and has even walked out of a select committee questioning.

When the pivotal moment came in his mayoralty, the 2011 riots, he was nowhere to be seen. Days after it had begun he graced us with his presence mumbling to himself about Twitter being to blame.

Boris the Careerist

This may all seem very London-centric but this election is a referendum on failed Tory ideology and their dubious political standards. Mayor Johnson is totemic of the arrogance, the incompetence and the callousness of the coalition.

He may appear as harmless as a vaudeville villain but his prioritising of London's wealthy resulted in real hardship for London's poorest. For four years he has fiddled while London burned.

Our capital city shouldn't be a stepping-stone for his political ambitions, as a financial and cultural centre it is too important for the welfare of the nation that it is properly run.

London will endure, it always has, but why should it when on the 3 May 2012 we can Sack Boris?

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