Ken's definition of Islamophobia

The Pub Philosopher has noticed that London's Great Leader has a strange definition of Islamophobia:

Islamophobia is discrimination, intolerance or hostility towards Islam and Muslims.

Take this literally and you have the end of religious freedom in the UK. Hostility toward a religion or all religions is an important part of our freedom.

James Whale

Whilst the Conservative party is still trying to lure Nick Ferrari, UKIP have got themselves a Radio Personality candidate.

Radio presenter James Whale could become the UK Independence Party's candidate for London mayor in 2008.

So it could be the newt lover versus the whale.

No Abuse of Human Rights in Venezuela

The mayor has an almost touching naivety over the good intentions of his South American best buddy:

There is no evidence that fingerprinting technology has been used to abuse human rights in Venezuela. I have no reason to believe that the government would use the technology to do so in future.

Here we have an authoritarian populist, who has abused his position to ensure his grip on power. A former army general with a failed coup attempt to his name, whose best friend is a communist dictator who has kept an iron grip on his nation for almost half a century.

Ken would implicitly trust this man, never to commit human rights abuses?

Green Credentials

Mr Livingston likes to shout about his green credentials. He has changed his mind over the tax formerly known as the congestion charge, and now proclaims it an environmental levy. So it will come as no surprise that he has exempted this electric car, from the congestion charge, it fits with his new found religion.

Unfortunately, the car is a complete environmental fraud, if we take the take into account the charging and power transmision loss, as well as the full life-cycle CO2 emission of power generation, as this calculation shows:

That means, making 18.8KWh of electricity releases 18.8Kg of CO2 into the athmosphere, leading to the startling fact that the G-Wiz chucks out 138g CO2 / km.

On the other hand, a Ford Focus 1.6D creates 127g CO2 / km.

Our esteemed Mayor is not the only one to be taken in by the myth of this car, but it fits very neatly into his view of the world. Claim to be doing everything for a good reason, and leave the facts out of it.

Ken will make millions of pounds of investment worthless

Millions of pounds will be wasted over the next three years as Mayor Ken strives to achieve his Oyster dream.

Ken and TfL's strategy to date, has been a massive hike in cash fares, and the reduction of Ticket Office opening times across the Network, last February. However, the next strategy will end up with the millions of pounds already spent on station refurbishment projects being wasted.

A large proportion of refurbishment budgets, at present, is spent on updating, and in some cases re-building, of ticket offices at their equipment. But all this expenditure will be prove to be fruitless as Ken's TfL quango have made it their next abjective to further close ticket offices.

Along with hiking up cash fares, TfL with make it even harder for people to purchase tickets forcing them on to the Oyster Card. The latest figures have revealed the extent of the closures, only 30 ticket offices are expected to remain, across the network. That means over 250 will be closed permanently over the next three years.


The problem is that millions of pounds have either already been spent, or currently being spent, on ticket office refurbishment, and Ken's Oyster dream will render that investment worthless.

In addition, any closure will no doubt infuriate the trade unions causing more unrest, with your average commuter having to suffer as a result.

Beating Up the Weak

One of those things that sets politicians with principles apart from those without, is that they do not use their elevated position to make life difficult for weak opponents.

Men like Livingstone however, revel in the power that they have.

Back in June, with that beacon of democracy Hugo Chavez in London, he took the opportunity to make derogatory public remarks about a Venezuelan Blogger. The blogger tried to sue the Mayor, who of course has legions of lawyers, paid for by Londoners. Realising that he was not going to win, he withdrew from the case. Ever since Ken Livingstone has continue to repeat his criticism, safe in the knowledge that his position allows him to do so.

The fact that a man with responsibility for London, should spend so much time trying to make a political opponent's life miserable, just illustrates what a vindictive little bugger he is.