The difference between Vision and Vanity

It has been an important week in the life of the Boris for Prime Minister campaign. On Tuesday, he launched his “2020 Vision” report, a lengthy treatise that corrals together previously announced projects and ‘ambitions’ and repackages them into a single plan for London. The document has been long in the making, commissioned over a year ago and delayed by 5 months whilst the Mayor penned each word himself.

Was it worth the wait? Had it been released 5 months into his tenure at City Hall, perhaps, but five years later, and insistent he will not serve a third term, it could just as easily be the beginnings of an apology note to his successor. The content is depressing. None of the challenges identified are new: we’ve long known that London’s population is growing and our housing and transport network is creaking under the weight of it. Those combing this document for solutions should wonder why it has taken so long to spark the Mayor’s interest. Likewise, no any plan of his should be taken at face value given the fate of the last one.

As for the intended audience, the coterie of journalists that are paid to ponder how Prime Minister Johnson would govern may have been better served if “2020 Vision” had a lengthy appendix entitled “2020 Vanity”. Only once you’ve viewed each of the ludicrous projects that he has embarked upon as Mayor together do you get a sense of his approach to public office. He promised that his “Boris Bus” would be cheaper and greener than alternative vehicles but will actually cost millions more and will require an expensive retrofit to meet emission rules. He said his £60m cable car across the Thames would add some glamour to rush hour commuting but it has managed to attract less than 30,000 passengers per week. His centre-piece, the “Boris Bikes” that were once promised to come at no cost to the taxpayer, will now bleed £35m from the public purse over the next three years.

Sadly, the unfortunate fate of each of these wheezes has not blunted Boris’ unquenchable thirst for taxpayer funded self-worship. His favourite hobby is to talk up “Boris Island”, the proposed new £70 billion airport in the Thames Estuary. Tellingly, that such a huge tax payer investment will likely lead to the closure of Heathrow and defenestrate the entire west London economy is glossed over by his advisers.

Unsatisfied that pursuing such a gargantuan public works project would take up enough of his time, the Mayor has now introduced us to a new addition to his stable of vanity schemes: the £60m “Boris Bridge”. Unlike other bridges, we are told, this will be complete with trees, flowers and copious servings of motherhood and apple pie. Since the City Hall bean counters have probably confiscated his cheque book, now all he needs is someone else to pay for it all.

Behind the vainglorious veneer on show at Tuesday’s launch are the thinkers and spinners that Boris pays to carry him through the doors of No.10. They are the ones charged with stitching together the inertia and indulgence of the last five years into an irresistible narrative that will warm the cockles in the hearts of Conservative MPs and activists alike. But these seasoned political apparatchiks know that the big questions of a possible Boris premiership remain unanswered: how can someone with such a wasteful record of public spending be trusted with fiscal prudency once ensconced in debt-burdened Whitehall? And how can someone whose profligacy is being charged to London commuters through inflation-busting fare increases appear credible when tackling the crisis in the cost of living?

With less than three years to go before the curtain is drawn on the Mayor’s time at City Hall, he and his advisers are desperately scrapping the proverbial policy barrel for a response.  What they come up with is revealing about him and his possible premiership, not the glossy “2020 Vision” document. Conscious of needing to fulfil his promise to “bear down on fares” before his time is up and his coup can begin, Boris has indicated he is open to selling off the naming rights to London’s historic tube stations to fund a fares freeze. The financial burden of his vanity will not be paid for by scrapping his failed vanity projects nor will he dare demand more from those who are most able give. Instead, he will begin the fire sale of London’s history and identity to the highest corporate bidders. His great legacy will not be his bikes, buses or cable car but the fact that to pay for them, your District Line train will now terminate at Wonga-don, not Wimbledon.

Boris the decision maker conforms to the same bankrupt ideals of his Thatcherite ancestors: he knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Not that this will bother our dear Mayor – advancing the cause of multinational corporations has never harmed a Tory leadership campaign. Far away from City Hall, he will be picking out curtains from the Laura Ashley catalogue for the Downing Street flat whilst balancing the demands of writing his weekly Telegraph column and his new book on Churchill, presumably laughing to himself at how he manages to get away with it all.

David Lammy is the Labour MP for Tottenham