The London Traveler

After all the excitement, the mudslinging, the namecalling and the voting, London has a new mayor. Ken Livingstone, for so long the public face of the city, has gone; Boris Johnson is now running the city.

With a major shift, from a secure Labour hold to a Conservative win, you might think it’s going to be all change. But I’m not so sure. It looks like normal service will be resumed.

• ‘Red Ken’ was renowned for being a maverick and an independent spirit. He was often on the outs with his own party and he was never a diplomatic type; if he could open his mouth wide enough to put his foot in it, he would. Oh, and he kept newts. Boris Johnson is exactly the same kind of guy – Conservative Party leader David Cameron is apparently rather worried about what Boris is going to get up to, fearing it might cost him the next election. So in terms of buffoonery and faux pas, nothing’s changed – we should get a lot of fun out of Boris.
•  Public transport remains an ideological battleground. Boris wants to get rid of Ken’s bendy buses and bring back the Routemaster, or the “new Routemaster”. He doesn’t seem to be clear how much that will cost, though. Strangely, at no point during the campaign did I see the price of public transport mentioned. London is now one of the most expensive cities in the world for the out-of-town traveler (buy an Oyster Card to cut down on this).  So, no real change here, either.
• The thing I personally found most disappointing about the whole campaign is that despite the apparent ideological and personal differences between Boris and Ken, neither of them really articulated an idea of what kind of city they wanted London to be. Or if they did, it didn’t come through to me.  The whole campaign seems to have been fought on tiny issues, bit by bit, with no real ideas behind it.

I’ve been underwhelmed by Boris’s first two great ideas. Number one, tell the police to work harder. Number two, ban alcohol on public transport. Nice headlines – but I don’t know what it will actually do to improve life in London. Unless you ban people from drinking alcohol before they get on public transport, you’re still going to get drunks on the tube at 1130 in the evening. Or is Boris going to insist you take a breathalyser test before getting on the bus?

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