Boris Johnson has won a most interesting and widely publicized London mayoral race. Congratulations Boris! And, perhaps, fittingly, it was a May Day [2008] victory. This “Observers” article [removed] pitting a pigeon-on-his-head Ken Livingstone (Labour) and a baked-beans-on-toast-munching-Boris (Tory) gives quite the tone for the battle waged and the less-than-conventional nature of the candidates.

And, if his own “Back Boris” site [now defunct] is anything to go by, Boris Johnson’s tenure as Mayor promises to provide a very different type of administration than we are used to seeing in ANY political function, anywhere in the world. Here is what the home page said (on its last day of publishing):

“If Ken Livingstone wins on Thursday, it is another four long years of waste, deceit, scandal, cronyism, crime and congestion. He will revert to form – nothing will change and Livingstone and Labour will think they can continue to ignore Londoners real concerns.”

Talk about not mincing one’s words–of course, I would have preferred there not to have been a grammatical error in the last sentence. But, then again, maybe that’s political blogging in the modern era?? We have seen what free-wheeling can do in French politics.

Boris’ acceptance speech (on YouTube) is an absolutely brilliant, inspiring (and gracious) speech [unfortunately it’s been taken down from Youtube].

Hopefully, there will be enough action behind the words to allow for a strong 5 years. I certainly agreed with Boris’ Daily Telegraph article regarding the over-population issue (written Oct 2007).

Updated with blogs/articles discussing the outcome:
* A good blog post on the office of Mayor of London and background on Boris comes from US Post (not -al service).
* A fellow Franco-Anglo Hillblogger (bonjour) with “Let’s Get Cracking.”
* And a useful piece from Cow’s Blog [defunct] — someone else who met Boris.
* An opinion piece from Charles Moore at the Daily Telegraph where Moore positions the Johnson victory as an indictment of Brown as much as anything else.

A man, born in 1964 (in New York), moved to London when he was five (as I did), who has lived in Brussels (my birth town) and went to English boarding schools… hum, sounds like a jumble I resemble. A man after my own heart.

Anyway, good luck Boris.