Boris Johnson once admitted to devoting “hours, days, years” in his late twenties to obsessing over former EU President Jacques Delors. He even claimed that the “pipe-puffing French socialist” inspired his best piece of writing, an article entitled “Delors’ plan to rule Europe” in the Sunday Telegraph, and held aloft by Danes marching to oppose the Maastricht treaty. Yet even now Johnson cannot escape the Frenchman’s legacy, especially the EU funding of “regional offices” that spawned the Greater London Authority—over which Johnson has spent a year as mayor.
That this evangelical anti-federalist owes his job to the godfather of European integration is just one of a long list of incongruities in the Johnson mayoralty. It is a supposed testing ground for a future Conservative government, yet he rejects the Cameron label. He is mandated by the largest direct democratic election of any office in Europe, but has limited power. He leads with a of cult of personality insufficiently large to disguise a lack of direction. But of all the pen-portraits of Johnson’s first year in office, described variously as “a disaster” and “formidable,” few have admitted the obvious: not a great deal has been done.
Certainly, much has been cancelled. Johnson has junked the extension of London’s congestion charge, along with the Thames Gateway Bridge. A police commissioner has resigned, as have rather too many mayoral staff. The “bendy buses” which Johnson scorned during his campaign still snake through London’s streets, and the high rises he promised to block continue to scramble towards the skyline.
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