Helen Duffett

Judgement Day for Boris Johnson’s first year in office

By | Wed 10th June 2009 - 7:50 am

It’s Annual Report time for Boris Johnson, and the London Assembly will meet this morning to debate the Mayor’s 2008/08 report and first year in office.

Despite having sections on economic recovery, tackling crime, quality of life and “A Mayor for all Londoners”, here are some things the report omits:

Boris’s broken manifesto promises:

1. Keep the Tube open for an extra hour on Friday and Saturday nights
2. Negotiate a no-strike deal with Tube unions. (Commuters to London today will know the reality of this.)
3. Convene an “emergency” public summit of train operating companies to deliver Oyster to train services
4. Introduce an interactive, real-time bus map
5. Fund four rape crisis centres (the promised funding required is 50% short)
6. Build 50,000 new affordable homes (this pledge has been dropped)
7. Support the Low Emission Zone (has suspended its third phase)
8. Create a Cabinet for London.

And what he has done:
· Put up public transport fares by 6 – 11%
· Abandoned major transport projects in the poorest parts of London, such as the DLR extension to Dagenham and the Cross River tram from South London to Camden.
· Scrapped plans to ensure that 50% of all new housing be affordable
· Axed £5.5m funding to skills programmes, expecting the boroughs to pick up the tab
· Cut funding in the environment by £500,000
· Suspended the Low Emission Zone
· Refused to show leadership on strategic planning matters

How will Boris explain these today?

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This entry was posted in London and News.
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3 Comments

  • Nick 10th Jun '09 - 8:25am

    Sadly Boris won’t be required today to explain himself. It’s a plenary meeting of the London Assembly without the Mayor in attendence

    However the debate about Boris’ first year is bound to spill over into next Wednesdays (June 17th) Mayor’s Question Time meeting, if only because the Mayor’s office seem intent on censoring anyone who criticises the Mayor. See http://torytroll.blogspot.com/ for further detail.

    Good job the Mayor’s office seems to have missed Lib Dem Assesmbly Member Mike Tuffrey’s critique of the first Mayoral year! See http://tr.im/nZRF

  • LS 10th Jun '09 - 8:28am

    Um, a pledge for a term doesn’t need to be carried out in its first year.

    In any case, I suggest that the Lib Dems are not in a good position to preach about breaking manifesto commitments. Can anyone say the words “Lisbon Treaty”?

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