Cow’s Blog

May 3rd, 2008

I stayed up last night to follow the results of the mayoral elections in London. I had quite an interest in the election being somebody who will be living in London over the next few years but also as someone who had previously met Boris.

Both Boris and outgoing mayor Ken Livingstone gave really good speeches when the results were announced. I was quite impressed at how Boris planned to work across party differences, and it almost seemed like he offered Ken and Liberal Democrat candidate Brian Paddick a job in his administration.

It’s an important job and I believe this appointment makes Boris one of the most senior Conservative politicians in the country. The BBC has a short biography of Boris which I felt was really interesting. I really recommend “Boris: The Rise of Boris Johnson” by Andrew Gimson as a more complete biography of our new mayor.

I met Boris at a networking event last year. In typical Boris style, he turned up about half an hour late but nobody seemed to mind. He was the main attraction of the evening. Boris spoke about his political career and about some of the controversies he has been involved politically. He was the friendly personality that you see on television and I think he’s a genuinely nice guy. People have publicly wondered whether he is competent for the job because of the number of gaffes he has made. I gained the impression that he was just very upfront and much more willing to have a laugh than most politicians were. It is true that the way he acted on the London campaign trial could be described as “new Boris” so it’d be interesting to see what happens when he starts on Monday!

I think the Boris Versus Ken contest has given the Barack Versus Hillary contest some competition for most interesting political battle of the year.

• Politics , UK
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