Boris bares his tory teeth

As Channel 4 announced its nominees for the Political Impact Award 2009, there were no surprises over some of the nominees. Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Lord Mandelson both make the final six, alongside Vince Cable, Andrew Walker, Eliza Manningham-Buller and you guessed it, Boris Johnson.

Preferences for who should win aside, and I’m sure readers of this blog will have varied opinions on this (comments welcome!), I wanted to take a look at the impact of one of this year’s most high profile politicians. Boris may have made an impact on the political world in 2008, but floppy hair and jokes aside, this new mayor of London is having a dangerous impact on the rights of London’s underrepresented groups.

Whilst I never really believed Boris’ sharing, caring rhetoric and commitment to the equalities agenda during his mayoral campaign, I can’t help but be shocked at the attitude of his administration to vital women’s services since taking office.

As part of Boris’ successful mayoral campaign last year he made a firm manifesto commitment to deliver three new rape crisis centres alongside continued funding for the one existing centre in London, to the tune of £744,000 a year. Boris has since been forced to admit that his manifesto promise to fund these services will remain unrealised. Backtracking on his manifesto pledge he will instead provide £233,000 a year in funding, slashing his manifesto pledge by over £500,000. That’s two thirds of his initial promise.

Likewise, the Greater London Domestic Violence project did not have their contract with the mayor renewed this year and The Board of Safer Travel at Night has been suspended. On top of this London’s annual women’s conference has been cancelled.

And it goes on. Alongside this, most of us will remember the last minute cuts to funding for last year’s Soho Pride and Luke’s blog highlights how Boris’ cuts to London’s transport system are affecting people with disabilities.

Compassionate and caring conservatives? The actions of the most powerful Tory in Britain suggest otherwise. Political impact? Yes. Positive impact? Hardly.

Comments

[James]

Two comments:

The award for political impact doesn't relate solely to positive impact. Impact can be both positive and negative - how else do you explain Brown's nomination.

Secondly, the definition of policial impact is also not the same as keeping manifesto commitments. In fact it is entirely different - how else do you explain Brown's nomination.

Points raised are interesting - but rather over-shadowed by the larger issues impacting this country. This is probably why they weren't considered by Channel 4 as a basis for nomination.