The first time I saw him I thought he was a caricature of one of those ‘eccentric’ upper class conservatives like you see on Harry Enfield and friends....
Later I found out he was ‘for reals’!
He was always pretty amusing on HIGNFY, but is he really qualified to be mayor of good old Londinium?
My reaction to the news was, as similar to your title, “Boris f***ing Johnson is Mayor? You’ve got to be f***ing kidding me!”
Someone I know said they suspect that Boris plays the bumbling fool, which is fine when there are no important issues, but he’ll prove a shambles if anything like terrorist attacks or something happen.
Well, to be fair, depending on the city government, a mayor can be anywhere between supreme dictator to figurehead. I would imagine that a city as drenched in laws and regulations as London is it would be very difficult for a Mayor to have any impact.
He reminds me (especially in those pitures) of a comical orchestra conductor. Flapping wildly with his arms while his hair flies about. Literally. As the toupee flips over his face with one of the more wild contortions.
Well, to be fair, depending on the city government, a mayor can be anywhere between supreme dictator to figurehead. I would imagine that a city as drenched in laws and regulations as London is it would be very difficult for a Mayor to have any impact.
Wrong.
Red Ken managed to make one hell of a mark. Congestion Charges, the bane of 4x4 owners everywhere in the London area, were his idea.
True.. *minor* stuff, though, compared to, say, rezoning the entire town as landfill, or bulldozing senior centers to give his buddies a place to park their cars.
We’ve had our share of idiot mayors in this town, some of whom have pulled some rather epic legislation. My personal favorite was the one who got the anti-loitering laws pulled, resulting in a dramatic upspike in homeless people pretty much setting up outdoor living rooms in public areas. This was combatted a few years later by a public drinking ordinance. Very unpopular with the colelge crowd, of course, until they found otu it was only going to be enforced on a per-complaint basis.
