Boris Johnson Gets Fined Over Congestion Charge, Continues To Prove He Is A Scarily Brilliant Politician

It’s emerged that Boris Johnson got fined for not paying the congestion charge he got when driving to spark up the “Hanukah thing” (his words) in Trafalgar Square last month. He was a guest on Vanessa Feltz’s BBC London show, and a caller reminded him that he’d pledged to lengthen the time you get to pay your charge and any subsequent fine; he responded by saying he had forgotten, and niftily segued into an attack on the “wretched system” of the congestion charge, saying he’d been fined himself.

Now at Bad Idea we tend to loath any kind of bleating conspiracy theory, but doesn’t this smell a little bit? Most news sources are reporting this as another bit of jolly Boris buffoonery, but isn’t it just another bit of convenient exposure for Boris’s pet peeve, the congestion charge? He’s already scrapped the charge for 4×4 gas-guzzlers in central London, is getting rid of the western addition, and is now thinking of scrapping the whole thing altogether. I can’t help but feel he just deliberately blundered into the zone, didn’t pay, and then appeared on the radio all as a way of pointing out the worst elements of the system, making him appear more like just a regular Londoner, and generating more momentum behind his anti-charge charge. £60 for some extremely effective publicity – bargain.

Whatever you think of him, the man has a brilliant political mind, using his personality to defuse the contentiousness of hot political topics. Its like his blustering lets forth a plume of chaff that slows down any attack on him, allowing his steely resolve to work unmolested. Couple that with the more basic strategy of fighting unpopular measures like the congestion charge and suddenly you’ve got plumbers telling you how much they rate him. He’s good.

Posted by Ben Beaumont-Thomas in Other | January 9, 2009 1:34PM |