...and as if public transport wasn't hellish enough, Boris is gonna ban boozing on the tube. He royally fucks me off.

I'm utterly depressed that Londoners voted out a man who secured billions of pounds worth of investment in the deprived east end, improved public transport, brought in audacious environmental laws (congestions charge) and plainly cared for the city, however 'presidential' some may have feared he was getting.

Now what have we got? Fucking Routemasters. Booze bans. Blunders. Bullingdon club. Grinning picanninies. No £25 charge for fucking Chelsea fucking tractors. I despair.

Mongrel, you do realise that if the oaf one day becomes PM, then all dissenters, like your good self (and I whisper it - "me"), will commit suicide in their gardens, by cuts to wrists that renowned surgeons publicly state could not possibly kill an adult. I'm steering well clear of you mate, or MI5 will be on my tail for my own views. There really never will be a rasta Prime Minister will there?

I'd rather a Bullingdon Boy over a Blairite any day of the week

mmm...

The booze ban when you think about it, is pretty pointless. There's rules about being drunk & disorderly already on the statute books. So this just increases his revenue from fining people and creating a quick publicity win in his first week in power.

And Chug It, how can you call Ken a blairite? He was expelled from the party before he became mayor (and then rejoined later).

It's not about Ken, I just dont want a Blairite/Labour/New Labour candidate telling me what to do. So I'm stoked that a conservative is in the hot seat.

I actaully thought Ken was alright, pretty nice guy in real life too; I just have a raging hard-on for Boris

You mean a Tory with a red tie on ;)

Actually i aplaud him for doing that . . . drunk cunts spilling special brew all over you on late night tube/bus journeys is a fucking nightmare . . i've been arrested twice in my life, both time for clocking someone when intervening on public transport when a bunch of pissheads were giving other passengers a hard time.

But what stops them from drinking before they get on the tube? Some sort of breathalyser at the turnstile?

I'm not pro anti social behaviour, but there's a hint of "Can't they wait until they're on the 17.23 from Paddington before starting on the G&T?"

Cracking quote from the late great Humphrey Lyttelton:
"Boris Johnson [is] known as the thinking man's idiot"

deftly dodges nicely worded accusation of plagiarism

that's a horrific choice to have to make...

+1 chris crash

just because some people voted in the BNP, doesn't mean their views are in any way valid\reasonable or based on anything but wishful thinking...

plus I suspect that most people who vote green(and I would if I thought it would change anything) are just as misguided as a 'martyr' blowing themself up in Iraq: your god knows you're right, even if you didn't actually make a difference.

If you vote for a minority party your plan is not get them in. You know it will not happen. Some small representation may be possible as has happened in the L.A with the green party which is all good.

Elections are won and lost over the floating voter. By the larger political system most people who vote for minority parties such as the Greens are regarded as floating voters. People know when they vote the that the minority party they vote for will not win so they do not care about many of that parties minor polices but the overall ethos of the minority party is one that they feel is not being taken seriously enough by the main stream. For the BNP it's immigration and for the greens it's mainly green issues / housing problem (IMO). I think nearly 8% went green at the L.A elections? Now lets say a quarter of these people are floating voters. If during the next term and at the next election one of the main stream parties can convince these floating voters that they are taking green issues seriously enough this is the type of swing that can swing an election. Do this on a few policy areas (such as immigration for the BNP) and you can secure a win / larger majority. This is why it is important to vote for minority parties.

The power of this method can be seen when looking back to the 70's and the demise of the NF. One of the key points which is said to play a downfall in their support was a speech by Marget Thatcher which spoke to the concerns of many of the NF supporters. This bought many of the NF supporters over to the conservative party and back into main stream politics. This is an example of a main stream party reaching out to the floating voters that went for a minority party. This may be an example of the a part of politics we do no wish to consider however the theory works just the same for areas of policy we, our selfs would like main stream politics to consider.

absolutely, but there is no check at the polling station to see if you know your shit, maybe if there was a basic political policies and awareness test or certificate...

I just think this 'vote for yourself', culture is shit, and (much as I'm sure a million tedious examples can be shown of where this didn't work) we need a bit more 'citizen' type voting...after all, boris got in, and it's because he had the shiny policies that appealed to the majority, who thought 'fuck the cyclists, I don't want to pay a congestion charge to pop down to Waitrose for a freshly tossed salad'...or 'fuck the environment, I've got a business that is based on carting stuff around, and it relys on the 'efficiency' of oil', or even better 'I don't like ken, so I'm going to shit in the stew and vote boris'

how about a compromise?

Resurrecting this thread...although slightly off topic. Not sure it warrants a whole new thread.

According to a new survey people "high prices of petrol and diesel are making UK drivers think twice about travelling by car".

The more people who figure out that there are other ways of traveling from A to B the better. Let's just hope this continues...