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[raises head above parapet]
May. 3rd, 2008 11:04 amThose of you so consumed with sorrow at Ken's exit - look on the bright side. Maybe now he'll have time to prepare some more of his diaries for publication.
Seriously, though - what exactly is it you're worried about? 'Traditionally Tory' (by which people these days seem to mean Thatcherite) stuff like an increase in London's rich/poor divide, and simmering racial tension? You may not have noticed, but we got all those under the last guy. And all this stuff about Boris being a buffoon, a joke...Ken used to be treated like that (anyone remember all the newt gags?), but then everyone realised it played to his advantage. He can hardly complain now he's finally been out-mavericked.
And before anyone calls me 'a Tory' (and how tiresome is it that in 2008, people still think of politics in terms of tribal party loyalties) - I didn't vote for them in the Assembly (I'm quite upset that even with my contribution, the Greens got no advance on their two seats), I've never voted for them at general or council elections, and I have no intention of doing so next time. I voted for Boris, a man who on many issues (the migrant amnesty and privatisation among them) is to the left not only of his own party, but of the entity still trading as Labour. I voted for him based on his policies - and those are his actual policies, not the Keystone Gestapo version some people seem to be expecting - not his hairstyle. Even if he disappoints me, as he may, as politicians normally do, as Ken certainly did in his second term...well, then he disappoints me, and next time I'll vote for someone else. And some of my friends will vote for him, and some of them won't, and I won't treat it as a cause never to speak to anyone again because that is not the noble tradition of British democracy, that is its nasty factionalist underbelly.
Seriously, though - what exactly is it you're worried about? 'Traditionally Tory' (by which people these days seem to mean Thatcherite) stuff like an increase in London's rich/poor divide, and simmering racial tension? You may not have noticed, but we got all those under the last guy. And all this stuff about Boris being a buffoon, a joke...Ken used to be treated like that (anyone remember all the newt gags?), but then everyone realised it played to his advantage. He can hardly complain now he's finally been out-mavericked.
And before anyone calls me 'a Tory' (and how tiresome is it that in 2008, people still think of politics in terms of tribal party loyalties) - I didn't vote for them in the Assembly (I'm quite upset that even with my contribution, the Greens got no advance on their two seats), I've never voted for them at general or council elections, and I have no intention of doing so next time. I voted for Boris, a man who on many issues (the migrant amnesty and privatisation among them) is to the left not only of his own party, but of the entity still trading as Labour. I voted for him based on his policies - and those are his actual policies, not the Keystone Gestapo version some people seem to be expecting - not his hairstyle. Even if he disappoints me, as he may, as politicians normally do, as Ken certainly did in his second term...well, then he disappoints me, and next time I'll vote for someone else. And some of my friends will vote for him, and some of them won't, and I won't treat it as a cause never to speak to anyone again because that is not the noble tradition of British democracy, that is its nasty factionalist underbelly.
