OK it's been 8years. Forget his style. What has he achieved in his time.
His highs and lows?
Did he introduce the proles to wiff waff?
He's effectively closed the Embankment to vehicle traffic.
Made dodgy blonde hair and a big mouth a political advantage - I'm looking at you America.
Made sure everyone knows who he is in time to become PM...
City Hire Bikes?
He's not Ken Livingstone?
Livingstone set the hire bikes up. They merely arrived in time for boris to put his name on.
Boris did scrap bendy buses and replace them with Boris buses.
There's a theme here isn't there?
He got to see a lot of free sport at the olympics?
He has a great record for overturning local borough councils planning permission refusals, approving 17 out of the 17 developments that he has called in. Most were refused for things like not providing enough affordable housing or being grossly over scaled, fortunately the poor multinational development companies can appeal to Boris when the nasty democratically elected borough council aren't letting them make enough profit.
Otherwise, he has finally managed a couple of fairly decent bike lanes, and his buses, while expensive, are probably marginally better than the old ones. Oh, and he's done a good job of taking credit for projects that weren't his, like the hire bikes and the Olympics.
Embankment- good or bad thing?
Doubled homelessness. Paid developers to take over public land to build luxury flats, gave a contract for an unwanted bridge to pals after a crooked selection process, championed buses that didn't work, the list is endless
But hey, he has a funny hairstyle and a good selection of one liners.
Closed down a multitude of London fire stations (against all advice / voting) resulting in fire deaths due to hugely increased response times. Even had the cheek to say closing them would "improve our terrorism response capability" - he's a complete moron, a dangerous one at that.
[quote=bikebouy said]He's effectively closed the Embankment to vehicle traffic.
Sounds like a good thing to me 🙂
And re: Boris Bikes, Ken unveiled plans for the scheme in early 2008, BoJo became major a couple of months later with the scheme opening over 2 years after that. So the scheme was hardly all sorted on a plate with contracts/sponsorship lined up. So all Ken did was make a press announcement 😉
There are much better routes for bikes than the Embankment, could have closed down the Strand and then Fleet St through and past the Walkie Talkie..
But if you live/use that area, you'd know that.
Did he introduce the proles to wiff waff?
The Riff Raff ?.... playing Wiff Waff?
His late entrance to try and **** up AFC Wimbledon's plans for a return to their home at Plough Lane was pretty special, even by his standards.
He was an exceptional Piñata.
He does seem pretty pro-cycling. Beyond that, I guess you'd have to live in London to know one way or the other.
His opportunistic stand in the EU question means I have written him out of the book of life regardless.
He's a bloody liability.
He wasn't the mayor or MP for anywhere else for 8 years, which is a result of sorts
Boris Bikes. Livingstone got the ball rolling, Boris finished it and then expanded the scheme. Cycle superhighway is excellent my daughter commutes daily using it (much safer than road aside from numerous agressive cyclists)
Buses, as above got rid of dangerous and congestion causing bendy busses and brought in modern double deckers
London continues to thrive (degree of out performance vs rest of country is becoming a problem however)
No terrorist attacks
DrJ London has a huge amount of council housing, sadly a very large amount of it is occupied by retired people with lifetime assurance of tenancy (certainly was around us in central London) - there isn't the land or money to build new council flats and the Labour controlled boroughs are selling them off faster than ever anyway
more interesting than most of the dullards.
Oh yes, forgot - pissed away money on illegal water cannons.
Boris prevented terrorist attacks #jambaplanet
I especially liked the bit where he saved the other monsters from a big scary dog by kissing it repeatedly. Good work.
[img] 
[/img]
Nice one Perchy! 
Taken shameless, opportunistic self-promotion to a previously unknown level.
Helped advance the cause of part time workers, by example
The new cycle routes are an improvement but not universaly loved, seems to be a few issues around the E&C area according to LFGSS and other sites, water cannons were a massive waste of money and just headline grabbing, +1 on "Taken shameless, opportunistic self-promotion to a previously unknown level."
However he gets a plus if he's tried try "to **** up AFC Wimbledon's plans for a" move to Plough Lane
Cycle superhighway is excelle
Scrapping Ken's segregated highways plan in favour of painting some dangerous bits of road barclays blue is terrible, after so many deaths even he is now saying segregated is better.
He also handed Barclay's the biggest advertising coup ever seen in London, still failing to make Borris bikes cost neutral and they all struggle greatly to keep up with demand.
He's courted property speculation by dubious investors at every opportunity, overturned many local planning decisions,
Homelessness has definitely rissen, tho, that's a nationwide phenomenon.
He scrapped the hybrid bendy buses, which was good and bad as they struggled on some parts of London's streets but they were much more effective at moving more people quickly than double Decker's
He replaced them with his vanity buses that look great but cost millions and are now diesel only as the batteries have failed and there was no warranty in the contract.
He ballsed up TfL negotiations, handing tube drivers chunky pay rises even Bob Crowe wasnt expecting.
has been closing down air pollution monitoring stations and overseen a huge fall in air quality with 10000 deaths a year in the city attributed to bad air, 6000 of those due to the ride in NO2 levels.
He rolled back the congestion zone in Kensington and Chelsea and scrapped Ken's plan for a 25 quid a day c-charge for supper polluting big engines.
Basically being mayor of London was a brilliant career move for keeping him in the news but he had famously done little actual work and left it all to his deputies until a photo op was required.
[img] 
[/img]
[img] 
[/img]
[img] 
[/img]
London continues to thrive (degree of out performance vs rest of country is becoming a problem however)
I didn't realise we called the investment of Russian crime "thriving".
No terrorist attacks
Super-Boris has no influence whatsoever in this. The reason there hasn't been a terrorist attack in London is due to the work of the intelligence services and the fact that there aren't as many people willing to blow themselves up in the UK as the Daily Mail would have you think.
jambalaya - MemberNo terrorist attacks
I know we had low expectations of him, but giving him credit for not making terrorist attacks is a bit much
I'm going to put it in my annual review though. What have you achieved this year? Well there were no terrorist attacks in my office.
Boris Bikes. Livingstone got the ball rolling, Boris finished it and then expanded the scheme. Cycle superhighway is excellent my daughter commutes daily using it (much safer than road aside from numerous agressive cyclists)Buses, as above got rid of dangerous and congestion causing bendy busses and brought in modern double deckers
London continues to thrive (degree of out performance vs rest of country is becoming a problem however)
No terrorist attacks
DrJ London has a huge amount of council housing, sadly a very large amount of it is occupied by retired people with lifetime assurance of tenancy (certainly was around us in central London) - there isn't the land or money to build new council flats and the Labour controlled boroughs are selling them off faster than ever anyway
How did I know who wrote that before even checking the username?
How did I know who wrote that before even checking the username?
I'm guessing the key-words "terrorist" and "...Labour..." [slur] will have helped.
Not got caught snorting coke off a hookers arse?
Wasn't Lee Rigby's murder a terrorist attack? Another Jambafail.
No terrorist attacks
Lee Rigby....
edit: Doh! Beaten to it!
There are much better routes for bikes than the Embankment, could have closed down the Strand and then Fleet St through and past the Walkie Talkie..
But if you live/use that area, you'd know that.
Except that would have meant closing Bank junction, and affecting the new pedestrian area at Aldgate.
The Embankment route is ideal for me.
But if you live where I live & work in Tower Hill, you'd know that.
He replaced them with his vanity buses that look great but cost millions and are now diesel only as the batteries have failed and there was no warranty in the contract.
I'm fairly sure the batteries are being replaced, under warranty, with an improved model. But that's just what I've read in the paper, so who knows what the real story is.
gave away the olympic stadium to a couple of smut pedalers then tried to cover up what a bad deal he'd got for the public???
There's been much talk of Boris' legacy' over the last few weeks/months, and it seems to boil down to his ability to use the media to create a myth which shrouds reality, and fools deluded people into thinking he's actually done something. The reality is, that he has in fact caused an awful lot of damage, and left London in a far worse state than when he came into office. Anything 'good' he appears to have achieved was actually planned/executed by others, such as the hire bike scheme (which was proposed and researched by a team led by Jenny Jones). He closed several fire stations to save £30 million, then announced a new 'garden bridge' that will cost, wait for it... £30 million.
Nero fiddling while Rome burns. That's the truth of Boris' 'legacy'.
He has a great record for overturning local borough councils planning permission refusals, approving 17 out of the 17 developments that he has called in.
This is a bit of an exaggeration - there are 32 boroughs in London so this represents calling in less than 1 application in each of the boroughs in his whole term in office - and that's on tens of thousands of planning applications.
I can't find any figures but my perception is that the previous mayor was far more inclined to use his powers on local planning applications when he was in office.
that he has in fact caused an awful lot of damage
Other than the fire service, have you got some specific examples?
My impression is that Boris has appointed deputies and trusted them to get on with it - then taken the credit when things have gone well.
I'd score him 3/5.
Livingstone would be luck to get 2/5.
Removed The ridiculous and ill thought out congestion charge extension introduced by Ken. Introduced contactless payment on public transport. Dragged the underground in to the 21st century.
The current works to convert Farringdon Road into a cycle superhighway are quite impressive. Major route through the city will soon be fully segregated for bikes, removing two lanes of motorised traffic in the process.
Funny how he's turned Ken's blue bikes into his own red ones.
Funny how he's turned Ken's blue bikes into his own red ones.
If only he'd managed to find a sponsor with a predominantly blue label it might have been running at a profit...
😛
"Other than the fire service, have you got some specific examples?"
Massive increase in homelessness.
Massive increase in public transport fares.
Massive increase in housing crisis (and total failure to meet house building targets).
Increased pollution levels.
Lying about not closing Tube ticket offices.
Causing transport disruption by refusing to listen to transport workers.
Failure to deliver 'no-cost' cycle hire scheme.
Total failure to deal with youth/gang violence.
Failure to deliver improved police service.
Millions wasted on vanity projects such as that stupid cable car, the Thames Estuary airport, and now the 'Garden Bridge'.
Failure to deliver a suitable replacement for the Routemaster bus (it was quite ironic recently when there was an issue with the new buses, and several Routemasters had to be drafted in to try to deal with the crisis).
Many more local failures such as £4.5 million lost in Crystal Palace 'development'.
Total failure to address poverty in London. More homeless families with children than ever before.
Just for starters. There's countless more examples, but life's too short.
Fire deaths have halved.
Actually, this could turn into a Python-esque 'How has Boris failed' type thing;
'Apart from a, b, c.... x,y,z; how has he failed?' 😆
