What, and get Paddick? you gotta be jokin'
Boris is a lot cleverer than he lets on, and at least he will see the point of getting people moving again around the city, and will listen to business. I've hardly set foot in London since they extended the Congestion Charge to to the RBK&C where I lived for many years - entirely against the wishes of the elected Council, local businesses, and the residents. I need to drive through it or into it for almost everything I'd want to do.
The need for the Congestion Charge was manufactured by Red Ken anyway - he and his acolytes in Socialist boroughs like Camden and Islington steadily removed the parking spaces and blocked off routes, made one way systems and bus lanes etc etc for several years before it was brought in, making it more and more difficult to move around. They then cited 'necessity'!
I used to work in Bloomsbury and in W1 for more than one publisher - and I'd take my car up as I had a lot of heavy stuff to shift about, and the dog. I never had any problems.
Eg: There was always parking behind the BM - all removed c8/10 years ago - which led to cars endlessly circling round the new one way systems of WC1 trying to park. Then a lot of roads in the area were blocked off meaning you couldn't get across from Gower St to the area west of Tottenham Court road without going right down to Picadilly! - madness. And traffic lights were re-phased right across the city to mean only c3/4 cars could get across on a green, slowing down the traffic only too effectively. Now you frequently wait for several minutes at an empty crossing... Endless humps have been put in, pedestrian islands, roads pinched to single file, etc etc etc
Tory boroughs resisted it so far as they could, but it was [and still is] a nightmare to get across London even WITH the Congestion charge, as they have left so little room for vehicles - the available road space has continued to shrink. That's almost entirely due to parking restrictions and traffic management, NOT traffic volume, and it impacts badly on anyone with deliveries to make, and work to do. London has a huge self-employed workforce which carries around the tools of its trades - it's just not possible to use the tube all the time.
"Red Ken" is still advised, and his office and campaigns run, by a hard core of long-standing dirigiste lefties with whom he's been associated since his early days, before the 'Palace Coups' when he first out-manoeuvred Illtyd Harrington for leadership of the left wing of the Labour group in London in the late 1970s then ousted the elected Labour Leader of the GLC Andrew McIntosh in 1981. It's all still very vivid in my mind.
See
http://www.election.demon.co.uk/glc/glccomment.html
He's a very ruthless guy indeed - and utterly hypocritical too as he sucks up to the rich and enjoys their lifestyle, while adopting policies which make it hard for small businesses to flourish. It's people like him who turned me against the left wing political movement for good. Imo he's a very dangerous man who has greatly exacerbated the gulf between the haves and have-nots in London [as have New Labour in the rest of the country], and the sooner he's deposed the better
I did support entirely his 'Fares Fair' policy of the early 80s btw, but that was an 'enabling' policy not a restrictive one, unlike many of his since he became Mayor. He also seems to forget that London is the capital city which belongs to *all* of us, not just those who happen to be living there at any one time - esp since such a huge number of those resident now are foreigners anyway. I resent extremely being disadvantaged in so many ways esp re transport policies in a city which was my home for a total of over 25 years
