Boris Johnson on the Croydon riots

I was delighted to be invited to a Conservative party event last Tuesday evening. The special guest of the night was the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who gave a speech about the riots that occurred last month.

Although he spoke about the riots as a whole, he predominantly focused on repairing Croydon and restoring faith into the citizens that reside there. His aim now is to recreate Croydon to be even better than it was before, by including new tram links and generating business incentives to stimulate the town’s economy.

At the moment, there seems to be a lot of disillusionment with the police. During the first days of the riots, the police took a laid-back approach and looters were free to ransack stores. This seems to be a huge concern for Johnson, therefore he emphasised that the police force is robust and resilient to bounce back from the criticisms.

He then opened the panel to the residents, including the owner of Reeve’s Corner (the biggest building that was set alight in Croydon). The store owner was reassured that he would have support as he reconstructed his business building.

I happily met Johnson afterwards. It was a great speech and a good night. He definitely left the event having a lot of support from the Conservative members of Croydon.

Many thanks to VD for this report.

Question Time with Boris

On Wednesday 3rd of March four Nonsuch politicians sat in the illustrious surroundings of Harrow’s Speech Room eagerly awaiting the arrival of our London Mayor Boris Johnson. For the next two hours Boris and the London Assembly (minus its BNP member) ‘answered’ the questions posed by audience members gathered from the surrounding areas of Brent and Harrow.
Despite the best efforts of a thoroughly incompetent chairman (“No, Mr Mayor – I’m not going to allow you to speak!”) the meeting proved a great success covering the major issues of crime and policing, the Olympics, the environment and transport. The atmosphere remained largely positive in spite of several controversial comments from the audience and the regular interruptions of a highly enthusiastic euro-sceptic who amused us all by continually yelling “leave the EU!”
Boris was easily the most accomplished politician on the stage and was generally popular, his Etonian wit saved him from several sticky situations and we suspect proved useful in preparation for his appearance on the more high profile BBC Question Time broadcast the following evening.
For more information please follow this link to the London Assembly Website which includes a full webcast of the event.

Many thanks to Nonsuch's CM and CF for that report! All contributions to the blog are very welcome - if you have anything political or historical you would like to share, please get in touch with Mr Coy or Mrs Budden.

Montezuma

You may be aware that the British Museum has just opened an exhibition about Montezuma, leader of the Aztec Empire, which as you can see from the picture above, is full of spectacular artefacts and treasures, dripping with gold and precious stones.

However, the reaction has not been completely positive, as this New York Times article, cheefully summarises. Philip Hensher in the Daily Mail writes that the artefacts are as "evil as Nazi lampshades made of human skin". Boris Johnson himself writes that Montezuma's regime, with its devotion to human sacrifice, fully deserved to be taken over by the Spanish conquistadores in 1519.

Is it right to put objects, however beautiful, in a public exhibition if they come from such a bloodthirsty regime? Do we have any right to pass judgement on other cultures from different periods of history? Let us know what you think, particularly if you have been to the exhibition or have seen the Aztec artefacts in Mexico.

Boris on EastEnders

The Mayor of London will appear on EastEnders tonight. Apparently Boris has a brief walk-on scene in the Queen Vic. Ken Livingstone is a little upset about it as the BBC turned down his requests to be on the programme. Let us know if you see it and what you think of his acting!

PS: Here's some footage of his appearance.