Why couldn’t you give a toss about the activities of one of the most powerful race wallahs in the UK?

Aren’t you just a little bit fed up with all this scandal nonsense? They’re all just as bad as each other. The system is screwed – it’s all little more than a gravy train.

Give me my taxes back.

More to the point, as I spent 2700 words and several hours last night trying to actually work out what Boris was on about with his transport policy (encouraging modal shift from buses to cars, I think, that’s certainly what the result would be), if Lee Jasper and possible misuse of £190,000 is so vitally important, why is it of so little interest that the estimates of Johnson’s bus policy costs alone are tens of millions of pounds out? Boris seems to think scrapping 337 nearly new buses, buying twice that number* of a yet undesigned son of Routemaster (plus extra drivers) and uselessly employing enough conductors to stop people falling off the back of them will cost £8m. That wouldn’t quite cover the extra drivers alone, by my reckoning. I thought we’d figured out that making up policy without reference to how much it’ll cost us isn’t an appealing quality in a leader?

* to provide the same capacity. Obviously if you replace bendies with equal numbers of son-of-RMs you’ll halve the capacity, so for the same capacity you need twice the number of vehicles and four times the staff (two drivers + two conductors v. one driver).

I’m less fussed about the claims of nepotism, more glad that he’s gone because he was an absolute relic and antagonist of the ‘race relations industry’. The man had no serious arguments to make whatsoever on the issues or race. They could have been recycled from 20 years ago.

Well said Sunny- hit the nail on the head there.

That’s why Lee Jasper’s fate is more important than some transport sums: he has been at the very top of the pile in London’s race (bad) relations industry pedalling 20-30 year old black nationalist rhetoric custom made to cause division.

Instead of helping race relations he has been an overheated handbrake.

You wonder why Ken kept him so close…

Well, I’m not big on race issues.

I live in a Nottinghamshire market-town famous for a civil war battle and its cattle market. It’s hardly a boiling pot of cultures.

Well I am, and I live in London, so I will weigh your opinions on the mayoral election accordingly…

I never said I live in London.

Then again, I think it says a great deal about politics in this country that *our* capital doesn’t have a decent contender for mayor!

BTW. Neither do I live in America or Russia, yet I still pass comment on American and Russian politics. I think you see what I’m getting at. I could write endlessly on why none of the above are suitable candidates for Mayor. The fact that race relations are so prominent in Ken’s remit, proves my point perfectly.

Being a Londoner should be a colour-blind issue. The fact that our politicians waste so much time and money on highlighting differences, only increases the problems.

Also, I have not always lived here…

Ha! It seems you Londoners are stupider than I thought!