Sunak and Johnson and their world of make believe

 

NUMBER 10 tried to hide a government report confirming that Low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) are popular and work well, encouraging walking and cycling, according to Peter Walker in The Guardian.

So, egg on the face of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s who is claiming that LTNs are unpopular because they are unfair to motorists.

Here we have further evidence of shenanigans from on high, twisting facts to suit political agendas with, in this instance, the aim of winning motor voter support ahead of the General Election later this year.

10 Downing Street clearly  hoped  the report would support their case against LTNs.

When it didn’t Number 10 asked for the report to be put on a shelf.

Here are the nuts and bolts of it.

The report found that from the four LTNs which took part in the study twice as many councils supported them than didn’t.

It found that LTNs are effective in reducing traffic volumes without causing any noticeable increase of traffic in surrounding areas.

Sunak is claiming the report should have included more areas so more voices could be heard, but you can bet he wouldn’t be saying this if the report had found in favour of his claims.

And besides, he knows how these reports work – you take a sample and extrapolate from there.

Common practice and accepted as fair.

Nearly 2000 people in four sample schemes took part in the survey, finding 45 per cent in support and 21 per cent against.

The irony is that Sunak by making out  motorists are being treated unfairly  is opposing his own government’s support for Active Travel, so making a mockery of his already flawed climate control agenda which anyway is basically full of shit.

It would seem that the campaign to discredit low traffic neighbourhood schemes has probably been generated by politicians and the right wing media.

Breath-taking, isn’t it?

Yet this example falls well below that of the greatest political con artist of recent years.

The Rise and Fall of Boris Johnson

This of course is former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, the subject of a television

documentary series “The Rise and Fall of Boris Johnson.”

Riveting stuff  but keep the sick bag handy,

We knew the guy was a con man.  His endearing personality, the scruffy schoolboy through-a-hedge- backwards haircut, the buffoon, the steady stream of quips. He missed his true vocation, Stand-up.  But this program reveals the depth of his deception in all its depressing detail, from people who worked with him and knew him well.

I recall first seeing Johnson in action, as the new London Mayor when he opened the Redbridge Cycle Centre, the temporary  home to Eastway demolished to make way for the 2012 Olympic Games Park.

He was clearly very popular. He duly climbed onto a bike and joined a mass of school children riding one lap of Indy Circuit finishing a towering fourth among the little ones.

“I can feel the form coming on,” he quipped to reporters. It was typical of the easy going affable Johnson.  On another occasion at a river event he was required to put on waders and step into the stream,   lost his footing and fell in.

Far from being flustered, he regained his footing and called out: “Come on in, the water is fine.”

These occasions were funny.  But then there are the misleading promises.

Remember this one?

As Prime Minister he declared he would build 40 new hospitals when the budget would stretch only to one and five major repairs at existing hospitals.

Told that to make the roads safer for cycling would take as much as £7bn, he proudly announced a few £mIllion instead – enough only for a few cycle lanes in half a dozen towns instead of the £billions needed to lay down full networks in towns across the nation.  He quipped about “cycling down cycle lanes in dappled sunlight”.

The danger was he left you with the impression it would all be done.

But beneath the fumbling exterior there was a purpose to all this – always to be the centre of attraction.

His main purpose in life, the program reveals, was to be liked, to get the top jobs; London Mayor, then PM, but with no clear idea on what the jobs entailed. It was all a game.

The investigation for this TV feature brought into sharp focus the damage he has done. As a journalist he is an entertaining writer. He spent 30 years rubbishing the European Union exaggerating issues without so much as checking his facts. Not his style.

It eventually cost him his job on one national newspaper, whereupon another signed him up.

His style is to bend with the wind, do whatever it takes to further his own personal crusade.

This was never more evident that in the build up to the Referendum in 2016.

The feature tells how despite rubbishing the EU he supported the UK‘s EU membership and was all set to back Remain before changing horses to back the Leave campaign. But it was a lie; he really hoped Britain would vote Remain.

Clearly he was banking on gaining some political advantage in this tactic!

Then we saw his undisguised shock when leave triumphed, followed by the political turmoil which would propel him into Number 10 when PM David Cameron resigned.

Cameron “Dodgy Dave” had permitted the Referendum believing that Britain would vote Remain.

Now he quit – to leave the mess to someone else to clear up.

Step forward Johnson who now had the job he’d always wanted, but not the baggage that came with it.  But he felt this was his lifetime ambition and the priority became to decorate his flat up in the roof.

He was faced with the task of, as he put it, “Getting Brexit done” when, as revealed from those closest to him he had no clear idea of what to do. His ensuing bluster and lies had driven a stake through the UK economy.

All we need now to complete  the farce is for the scruffy sod to stage a comeback, win over the doubters with his engaging wit and smile (he is earning £m as an after dinner speaker which says a lot about how many deluded types still support him).

In the back of his mind is sure to be the germ of an idea to become an MP again, and rescue the Conservatives in the General Election everyone is certain they should lose.

Don’t bet against it!