James Farrar wrote:
Tony Polson wrote in
:
wrote:
On Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:31:40 +0100
Tony Polson wrote:
I wonder if so many people would have voted for Boris if they had
realised that once in office, he would be completely ineffectual -
apart from getting rid of Ian Blair, of course. His finest hour.
I voted for him, can't say I've been too impressed so far. OTOH he
seems fairly harmless unlike Ken.
I'm not sure that your "fairly harmless" is a compliment - I don't
think it is very far removed from my "completely ineffectual". Surely
there is no point in a Mayor who achieves almost nothing?
Achieving nothing is infinitely preferable to being actively harmful.
I disagree. Negligence by omission (a failure to act) can be just as
serious as a negligent action.
As Harold Macmillan (Prime Minister 1957-63) once said, politicians are
judged by their response to "Events, my dear boy, events!" Not to
respond to an event that demands a response would be a negligent
omission.
It is the nature of the Mayor's job that he/she has to respond to a
stream of events, some more significant than others. You seem to be
suggesting that it is OK for Boris to do nothing, allowing these events
to pass him by. Would you support other politicians who did the same?
For example, the Labour government is doing all it can to cling on to
power until it has to call an election, probably in June 2010. It is
not addressing the colossal hole in the public finances, preferring to
leave a substantially worse problem for the next government, which
Labour in all probability won't lead.
Presumably you support this stance?