Beyond our Ken
May. 5th, 2012 11:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
millionreasonsI watched a little bit of Newsnight last night, before remembering why I don't watch Newsnight. I understand that the news-media must put a narrative on events, but theirs made no sense. They were determined that Ken Livingstone is an unpopular man amongst the left. I really don't get this. Unpopular with Tony Blair, yes, but amongst the populace? He was popular in the GLC days, he was so popular he won as an independent in 2000, and then again as the Lab candidate in 2004. Newsnight tried to sell the idea that although the voters of Camden and Barnet had voted overwhelmingly for a Labour London Assembly member, they'd also chosen Boris rather than Ken, because the latter is so hated. This fails to take into account that a) Barnet is a heavily Jewish area and Ken is viewed as anti-semitic; it's possible that the Hasids of Barnet voted Boris and then didn't bother with the London Assembly voting forms, and b) Brian Coleman, the current B&C GLA member is actually hated by pretty much everyone.
I don't know if Ken is anti-semitic. His comments to the Evening Standard journalist were idiotic, but one only has to look at the controversies section on Boris's wikipedia page to see he's said much much worse. Ken had links with nasty Islamic fundamentalists but Boris has links with News International. Worse, he has links with George Osborne. Ken (legally) puts his wages into a company to pay his staff, Boris uses the office of a non-tax paying company for his telephone canvassing. Ken was accused of cronyism, Boris had to sack his first deputy mayor after a month amid claims of that old Tory chestnut, financial irregularities (and oh! he's just lost another one. Losing one deputy mayor is unfortunate....etc). This LRB article on Ken and his memoir is pretty good.
The news has also decided that it's Boris's whif-whaffery, blond mop and hilarious (sic) personality that won him the Mayoralty. Maybe it's just that there's more fucking Tories in London, now that the Conservatives are doing their best to get rid of the poor within the city limits. Maybe it's just that unpolitical people aren't sick of Boris yet. Also, in 2008, Ken got 149,884 less first votes than Boris. This time around the first vote gap was 82,013. KL got more second votes than BJ and thus a larger share of the popular vote overall. It's hardly a landslide for Johnson. Ditto, although I'm glad Tories have lost their seats on councils and the Greens look like they could become the third party, replacing the yellow-belly LibDems, local elections don't mean that much in terms of who wins general elections. We're not even half way through this parliamentary term yet.
When the Tories were (not really) elected and I was trying not to move to Sweden, I thought one silver lining of living under a right wing government would be that support for the BNP would decrease. I was right. I'm trying to find a silver lining now: Boris's win means he becomes more of a threat to Cameron - live by the TV personality, get shafted by the TV personality. Talking of, I hope no Tory women were standing too near BJ when the result was declared in case fell on them like a wardrobe with the key sticking out (pace Nicholas Soames).
Anyway, I hope the people who voted Boris are looking forward to £2 bus fares and £15 day travelcards*. Oh no, they won't, will they, because they just drive around in their massive fucking cars.
* When Boris was elected, an off-peak zones 1-2 one day travelcard on an oyster was £4.60. Now £7. 52% increase.
In non-Mayor news, I was sad at the death of Adam Yauch. I hated the Beastie Boys when they burst into 1986 with their frat-boy humour and annoying songs. Ok, I was 13, I didn't know what a frat-boy was, but I didn't like their schtick. But then suddenly, they were great. Hey Ladies! Sabotage! Intergalactic! They went from having caged female dancers and blow-up dicks on stage to this:
I don't know if Ken is anti-semitic. His comments to the Evening Standard journalist were idiotic, but one only has to look at the controversies section on Boris's wikipedia page to see he's said much much worse. Ken had links with nasty Islamic fundamentalists but Boris has links with News International. Worse, he has links with George Osborne. Ken (legally) puts his wages into a company to pay his staff, Boris uses the office of a non-tax paying company for his telephone canvassing. Ken was accused of cronyism, Boris had to sack his first deputy mayor after a month amid claims of that old Tory chestnut, financial irregularities (and oh! he's just lost another one. Losing one deputy mayor is unfortunate....etc). This LRB article on Ken and his memoir is pretty good.
The news has also decided that it's Boris's whif-whaffery, blond mop and hilarious (sic) personality that won him the Mayoralty. Maybe it's just that there's more fucking Tories in London, now that the Conservatives are doing their best to get rid of the poor within the city limits. Maybe it's just that unpolitical people aren't sick of Boris yet. Also, in 2008, Ken got 149,884 less first votes than Boris. This time around the first vote gap was 82,013. KL got more second votes than BJ and thus a larger share of the popular vote overall. It's hardly a landslide for Johnson. Ditto, although I'm glad Tories have lost their seats on councils and the Greens look like they could become the third party, replacing the yellow-belly LibDems, local elections don't mean that much in terms of who wins general elections. We're not even half way through this parliamentary term yet.
When the Tories were (not really) elected and I was trying not to move to Sweden, I thought one silver lining of living under a right wing government would be that support for the BNP would decrease. I was right. I'm trying to find a silver lining now: Boris's win means he becomes more of a threat to Cameron - live by the TV personality, get shafted by the TV personality. Talking of, I hope no Tory women were standing too near BJ when the result was declared in case fell on them like a wardrobe with the key sticking out (pace Nicholas Soames).
Anyway, I hope the people who voted Boris are looking forward to £2 bus fares and £15 day travelcards*. Oh no, they won't, will they, because they just drive around in their massive fucking cars.
* When Boris was elected, an off-peak zones 1-2 one day travelcard on an oyster was £4.60. Now £7. 52% increase.
In non-Mayor news, I was sad at the death of Adam Yauch. I hated the Beastie Boys when they burst into 1986 with their frat-boy humour and annoying songs. Ok, I was 13, I didn't know what a frat-boy was, but I didn't like their schtick. But then suddenly, they were great. Hey Ladies! Sabotage! Intergalactic! They went from having caged female dancers and blow-up dicks on stage to this:
