The Evening Standard and the “Borisbike”

By Peter Carrol

Friday’s launch of the Barclays Cycle Hire Scheme in London coincided with the culmination of a sustained publicity drive around the new initiative by the Evening Standard.

The excitable reporting from London’s flagship paper was notable for their unstinting determination to nudge the ‘Borisbike’ nickname into London’s popular lexicon. After a cursory scan, I found the phrase used six times in Friday’s edition. Apart from being one of the uncatchiest nicknames around, the trickiest issue arising from the coinage is that the policy actually originated from Boris Johnson’s predecessor, Ken Livingstone, a whole year before Boris was even elected. After an inspiring trip to Paris in 2007, Ken said:

“Cycling is a clean, fast and cheap way to get around London…I have asked transport officials in London to study the Parisian and similar schemes in order to draw up proposals for a scheme which would meet the needs of London. I am sure that we can learn from the success of the Parisian and similar schemes to expand access to cycling in London”

But the Standard has a history of short-changing Ken. During Boris’ 2008 campaign, Veronica Wadley, editor of the London Evening Standard, became one of most powerful figures in his campaign team. Wadley endorsed Johnson before he was chosen as the Tory candidate, and then gave momentum to the early stages of his lackluster campaign. Meanwhile, the paper mounted near daily attacks on Ken Livingstone; amongst the litany of slurs was the accusation that Ken treated the office as a private fiefdom and that he was drunk at work.

And it was the Standard’s stories about alleged malpractice by Livingstone’s race adviser, Lee Jasper that set the tone of their coverage. Never mind that Jasper was completely cleared of any impropriety and the allegations dropped a year later, the report helped set the terms of debate and provided a background noise that Livingstone’s administration had grown tired.

The newspaper’s daily contribution to the campaign narrative meant that it could put around 500 billboards around London every day, announcing that Livingstone was corrupt and the unchallenged Johnson was the only man for the job.

It is also worth noting that Boris recently that his admiration of Ms. Wadley was entirely mutual, by installing her as London chair of Arts Council England despite fierce criticism that she was unqualified for the post.

Onlookers hoped that such behaviour had ended when Alexander Lebedev bought the Standard from Associated Newspapers, installing new editor Geordie Grieg and launching a publicity campaign apologising to readers for its previous behavior.

I hope that the promise of a fresh perspective from the paper after last spring’s takeover has not already been forgotten? Giving Boris excessive kudos while misrepresentating Ken Livingstone’s achievements seems a little Veronica Wadley-era to me. But with Ken looking likely to become Labour’s candidate for mayor once again, this evidence suggests that we cannot be certain that he will get a fair hearing from London’s only remaining newspaper.