Boris is surely the man to vote for in the next mayoral elections. Even if you’ve never thought of yourself as a Tory, this election isn’t really about party politics. It is about the opportunities, social good and general welfare of Londoners.
Boris deals with the fact that Livingstone’s London has had 27 teenagers murdered by other adolescents in 2007. He deals with the seriousness of crime that Londoners have, until now, accommodated. He also deals with the fact that the Home Secretary Deputy Party leader (my mistake) will not go out onto the streets of London in her own constituency without wearing a bullet proof vest. This is Livingstone’s London – and it is time for a change.
On crime and safety, Boris will prevent Londoners, particularly the young, from becoming victims of gang violence. This is a very good thing – by now, I would think everyone knows someone who knows someone who has been robbed on the streets of London, as Ken Livingstone continues to announce that everything is fine. Everything is not fine. For once, it would be nice to turn a local newspaper anywhere in South London, or somewhere in Havering, or wherever else I find myself in the London boroughs to find that the front page is not covered with a horrific murder of an unsuspecting teenager who was simply on his or her way to school. But it is not in the newspapers where the problem is – it is on the streets and it is a reality.
Boris promises to give support to local community projects that “get young people off the streets and give them purpose and a realisation of their value as members of society”, which I don’t think is the root problem of tackling crime (alas, community projects have really not been the long-term answer), but I do think it provides the best possible start in tackling crime. It is the best possible start because it deals with the immediate realities of dealing with criminal activity. And Boris's interventions offer more than Livingstone had ever attempted.
Thanks to the absence of Labour-Livingstone intervention, there are some dangerous and harmful people in London but the general public has played its part in ignoring these problems. We have, in fact, all accepted knife/gun culture as a condition of living in modern Britain, not simply London. That has to change. Boris is going to put £2.6 million into new technologies and methods for stopping those who carry knives and guns. He will tackle further problems with hooligans on public transport, which I am hoping that also means punishing abusive ASBO-chavs who smash up their local bus stops and under Livingstone, have got off scott free. Time for a bit of measured discipline and Boris will ensure that, he has said, through community service in order to win back their Oyster cards.
As for a lack of bobbies on the beat, Boris says he will tackle police bureaucracy so that they can do their job. Livingstone, on the other hand, has been King of bureaucracy. Boris wants a more accountable local police and local neighbourhoods to watch out for one another, which again seems sensible and measured (nobody wants constant policing). For me, he gets at tackling this accidental toleration of the villains and thieves that now seem to be prospering in Livingstone’s London. He gives power to the ordinary law-abiding voter who just doesn’t want to put up any longer with this degree of crime and constant threats to public safety.
I guess, what I mean is, if you are going to bother to vote, for what it’s worth, you should think about voting Boris.
