What makes it worse, it that everyone has been so cringeingly oblivious and manipulable.
The media, right-wing in its vast majority, have cynically propagated myths about the Mayorship of London, telling everyone that:
a) the Mayorship is irrelevant and purely symbolic.
b) Ken Livingstone is corrupt - with articles by Andrew Gilligan tiptoeing precariously between investigative journalism and mud-slinging libel.
c) Boris Johnson is anything other than a clueless puppet of Tory HQ and their campaign team.
But, of course, Londoners haven't noticed this - reading between the lines not being our strong point evidently. No-one noticed that the Evening Standard hadn't officially endorsed a candidate while it laid into Ken Livingstone so voraciously - despite the fact that electoral rules and industry regulations demand that the press provide balanced coverage of an election unless they are officially supporting one candidate over another.
And so people just lapped it all up like obedient sheepdogs, put their X wherever they were told, and danced behind Boris Johnson all the way to Hamlin.
People's itsy-bitsy attention spans had got bored of Ken Livingstone. Never mind his successes as Mayor or the remarkable creation of the first city government in the capital for 14 years. Because he doesn't have a silly haircut or make amusing racist remarks. You could see in his victory speech that even Boris Johnson felt a bit guilty.
"It's a protest vote!" they cry. The Labour government at the moment are stumbling punch-drunk and clueless and people have expressed their protest at that fact, which is more than understandable. Democracy is about change and about registering the desire for change. But not change for change's sake, surely? Some 69,710 people voted for the British National Party! It beggars belief. Can you not see shades of Germany 1933 - as the democrats jostle for elbow-room in the middle-ground, the extremists clear their throats in the wings... Ok, it probably (or at least hopefully) doesn't represent quite so catastrophic a sea-change as that, but the exaggeration is justified.
Ultimately it has been a smart move for the Tories. They know full well that they don't have the substance or political acumen to provide a viable alternative to Labour's considerable shortcomings, and so chose as their Mayoral candidate the one man for whom substance and political acumen are mere sideshows in his circus of buffoonery. Never mind that the Tories have not suggested any tangible solutions to the crises being faced in the UK at the moment, as long as David Cameron can smile smugly and rub his hands in glee, he can continue to make a mockery of democracy in London. He would rather inherit a country in tatters than see things turned around in the here and now.
Paul Merton summed it up rather well on this evening's Have I Got News For You. He said of Boris Johnson: "It's just a disaster isn't it? If he wins he's going to go off and do something surprising and extraordinary and people are going to go: 'Oh no, he's a fucking idiot'."
Ah well. I never thought I'd be ashamed to be a Londoner. But there you go.
Let us all raise a glass of Etonian port to a future of politics dominated by platitudes, celebrity, and a modicum of common-sense conspicious only by its absence.
3 comments:
Fine words.
The real crime of tonight is vindication not of Johnson but of two different groups of scumbags each now poised to get their greasy mitts on a city that has little idea it has enabled them.
Team one, the Evening Standard. Finally it can feel a part of the government of the city it claims to be a part of but in truth is just desparate to remain in control of. Such a campaign by such a paper deserved to be punished. The cunts involved at the centre of this, however, escape and lavish themselves into the party of champagne and cocaine tonight. They have badly destroyed democracy in the city and betrayed London.
Secondly, keep a keen eye open for a nasty menace. There are now vultures from within the corridors of westminster waiting to set their talons into the carefully arranged assmebly of the Greater London and TfL adminsitration. These are nasty people, second-rate tory boy politicos who have spent the last twelve years feeling frustrated, cheated and vexed at their lack of any position of power. They do not deserve London and will surely cause at best inertia and at worst a bloodbath in the multi-billion pound infrastructure projects that the city must engage in over the next four years. I have met some of the people who are angling for Boris' inner team and heard their war cries. Alas, we should all be very afraid at letting these bigoted Home Counties boys loose on such a fabulous but combustible stage as London.
But congratulations to Boris, who may well blossom into a not entirely hapless figure. Farewell to Ken Livingstone, a real mayor of London. Everyone must beware what's coming up; there has never been a more pertinent case of being careful what you wish for.
The only thing scarier than Mayor Johnson? Prime minister Cameron.
The tide looks like it has turned against Labour across the country. Thursday was more than just the usual mid-term protest vote.
Where shall we emigrate to?
You seem to have a very low estimation of people, Mr Burgess!
Have people been "cringeingly oblivious and manipulable"?
The media may have been propagating those myths as you said, but how much people subscribed to them I'm not sure. Firstly, I don't think many Londoners would consider the Mayorship irrelevant. Secondly, it seemed that public reaction to Ken's scandals (the issue of his multiple children springs to mind) was quite moderated - there were many comments, in the public commentary sections of the papers I read at least, saying how such issues had no bearing on his abilities as Mayor. True, this may not be wholly representative of public opinion, but it might suggest that people were not as influenced by such articles as you claim (our cynical minds are better able than ever to see through the vitriolic rantings of salacious journalists). Thirdly, such a "clueless puppet" could hardly have become a professional politician - he has to be respected on some level for his achievements. Then, as soon as you put them head-to-head as professional politicians, their respective past careers become far less relevant than what they are offering in that particular moment of time.
Fourthly, your point about the Evening Standard is a contentious one. How many people would be so au fait with those electoral rules and industry regulations you cite, and what bearing would that have had on people's votes? Even if the ES was indeed breaking industry guidelines in not explicitly supporting a candidate, it seems it was at least doing so implicitly and, as it is solely the content of the paper that matters to people, I would, again, like to think that people were not solely deterred from Ken by some journalists looking for scandal to increase their readership.
This is by no means a post defending Mr Johnson's election success, like you, I'm just trying to figure out why it happened, wondering if it's less to do with the factors you list in the first few paragraphs. However, I do think you're onto something in the latter paragraphs.
Rather than 'bored' of Ken's successes I think Ken has become the victim of the calamitous state of the Labour party in general. Had the mayoral election happened at a time when Gordon Brown was not flailing haplessly, the result might not quite have been so disastrous. In some way, both Ken and the Labour party have only their past successes to blame - they have both achieved great things but now the ship is perceived to be sinking, people are jumping to the next best available. It isn't "change for change's sake" as you suggest, it's change in order, rightly or wrongly, reasonably or irrationally, to prevent a sharp decline after such a period of apparent prosperity.
Which brings me round to the main point of all of this - Boris's election is perhaps symptomatic of the fundamental flaw in democracy: the people who drive the process, for whom it is designed, and on whose good judgment its smooth running is predicated, are fickle (less diplomatic commentators may say 'stupid').
So don't pick on Londoners; you may well be applying the same comments nationwide in around 18 months time! This does indeed show shades of Germany in 1933, as it does to every cyclical refreshing of the political system that has followed in which the mass media has played a part - the public have their often intangible frustrations and concerns crystallised and amplified by a media all too eager to do so.
Cheer up though - Boris might do ok, which will render all this spilt ink (or keyboard bashing) purely academic, or he might mess up and ruin the Tories' chances of winning a general election and we'll replace him next time round. And then even if the Tories do get in themselves next time round, they'll either prove to be a decent government or Labour will have a chance to consolidate and reflect on what went wrong for them, correct it and re-tap into the then public disillusionment...and thus the cycle will continue!
So yes, people may not give their vote the thought it perhaps deserves, but writing them off means writing off democracy itself. And that would be far worse than anything Boris could do.
Another question that might be relevant: did Boris win because Londoners actively wanted him, or did they just no longer want Ken?
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