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| Which Conservative could follow Boris Johnson as London mayor? | Which Conservative could follow Boris Johnson as London mayor? |
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| Stephen Greenhalgh, Boris Johnson’s deputy for policing, announced on Wednesday that he wants to be London’s next mayor. This follows his fellow Conservative and entrepreneur Ivan Massow announcing last month that he has the same aim. Were I in charge of the Conservative Party I would by now have dispatched burly men to, say, the Richmond home of Zac Goldsmith MP with orders to twist both his arms - and whatever else that came to hand - for as long as it took to make him too declare that he desires to boss City Hall for the blues. Electoral logic suggests the 2016 mayoral election is Labour’s to lose. At this rate, the Tories will make such self-destruction unachievable. | |
| It is not that Massow and Greenhalgh lack strengths as potential candidates. Both, for example, have personal histories with campaign potential. Massow has played this card already, describing himself to the Evening Standard as a “rags to riches boy” who “grew up in the care system” and didn’t go to a posh school, yet managed while in his early 20s to become a self-made millionaire, initially by starting from scratch in 1990 Britain’s first financial advice company aimed at gay clients. It’s been rather uneven since then - a tale of tragedy, extravagance, bankruptcy, booze and Joan Collins. It’s nothing if not vivid. | It is not that Massow and Greenhalgh lack strengths as potential candidates. Both, for example, have personal histories with campaign potential. Massow has played this card already, describing himself to the Evening Standard as a “rags to riches boy” who “grew up in the care system” and didn’t go to a posh school, yet managed while in his early 20s to become a self-made millionaire, initially by starting from scratch in 1990 Britain’s first financial advice company aimed at gay clients. It’s been rather uneven since then - a tale of tragedy, extravagance, bankruptcy, booze and Joan Collins. It’s nothing if not vivid. |
| Greenhalgh’s background is less spectacular, but he too can call on humble roots, as recalled by his father, a distinguished surgeon, in his autobiography. He can also tout experience outside politics as a brand manager for Proctor and Gamble. His problem is that his management of his own political brand requires work. | Greenhalgh’s background is less spectacular, but he too can call on humble roots, as recalled by his father, a distinguished surgeon, in his autobiography. He can also tout experience outside politics as a brand manager for Proctor and Gamble. His problem is that his management of his own political brand requires work. |
| His debut public performance as head of the mayor’s office for policing and crime (MOPAC) was so off key even fellow Tories told him off for it. An unfortunate incident in a City Hall lift seems generally perceived as an example of a proclivity for odd and unsuitable behaviour (rather than something nastier), as further demonstrated by a series of explosions at a police and crime committee meeting in June. His occasional yet often visible oscillations between irritation and distraction don’t do him any favours. It a shame because, as he demonstrated at City Hall on Thursday, Greenhalgh is energetic and able with a detailed grasp of his MOPAC brief. | His debut public performance as head of the mayor’s office for policing and crime (MOPAC) was so off key even fellow Tories told him off for it. An unfortunate incident in a City Hall lift seems generally perceived as an example of a proclivity for odd and unsuitable behaviour (rather than something nastier), as further demonstrated by a series of explosions at a police and crime committee meeting in June. His occasional yet often visible oscillations between irritation and distraction don’t do him any favours. It a shame because, as he demonstrated at City Hall on Thursday, Greenhalgh is energetic and able with a detailed grasp of his MOPAC brief. |
| Unlike Massow, whose recent pledge to open the doors of City Hall to London’s homeless made him look a gimmicky lightweight, Greenhalgh will by 2016 have spent “a decade in the engine room of London government,” as he put it to BBC London News. It is what he’s been doing in that room, rather than the foibles of his style, which should be scrutinised most closely. | Unlike Massow, whose recent pledge to open the doors of City Hall to London’s homeless made him look a gimmicky lightweight, Greenhalgh will by 2016 have spent “a decade in the engine room of London government,” as he put it to BBC London News. It is what he’s been doing in that room, rather than the foibles of his style, which should be scrutinised most closely. |
| Greenhalgh rose to prominence after leading the Conservatives to power on Hammersmith and Fulham Council (H&F) in 2006 and embarking on a radical programme of cost-cutting, council tax-trimming and developer-led regeneration schemes. His tenure at H&F showed him to be a driven, pure conviction Tory, prized as such even before the 2010 general election by party high-ups like Eric Pickles. | Greenhalgh rose to prominence after leading the Conservatives to power on Hammersmith and Fulham Council (H&F) in 2006 and embarking on a radical programme of cost-cutting, council tax-trimming and developer-led regeneration schemes. His tenure at H&F showed him to be a driven, pure conviction Tory, prized as such even before the 2010 general election by party high-ups like Eric Pickles. |
| In a co-authored 2009 pamphlet arguing that social housing as we know it should be done away with, Greenhalgh anticipated and probably influenced the coalition’s “affordable rent” reform and showed he could construct a coherent argument in which public finance “common sense” and “caring Conservatism” advanced together hand in hand. But as the Earls Court Project he championed has shown, reality was a case of same old Tories - top down attitude, scornful of “welfare culture”, unshakably certain that big money private interests and the greater good are one and the same. | In a co-authored 2009 pamphlet arguing that social housing as we know it should be done away with, Greenhalgh anticipated and probably influenced the coalition’s “affordable rent” reform and showed he could construct a coherent argument in which public finance “common sense” and “caring Conservatism” advanced together hand in hand. But as the Earls Court Project he championed has shown, reality was a case of same old Tories - top down attitude, scornful of “welfare culture”, unshakably certain that big money private interests and the greater good are one and the same. |
| His stewardship of MOPAC too has demonstrated great strengths and serious weaknesses. Greenhalgh describes with true excitement the cost rationalisations and property disposal programme he is leading to compensate for massive budget cuts. Much of this looks sound in principle - one of the more substantial examples, perhaps, of Mayor Johnson getting a business approach applied to the public sector. | His stewardship of MOPAC too has demonstrated great strengths and serious weaknesses. Greenhalgh describes with true excitement the cost rationalisations and property disposal programme he is leading to compensate for massive budget cuts. Much of this looks sound in principle - one of the more substantial examples, perhaps, of Mayor Johnson getting a business approach applied to the public sector. |
| Yet in the other part of his role as Johnson’s proxy as London’s police and crime commissioner - as the man holding the Metropolitan Police Service to account on behalf of the capital’s people - Greenhalgh’s hard-wired default is one of deference to uniforms and a seemingly unquestioning belief that cutting crime is all about numbers of “bobbies on the beat”. The targets and truisms of his police and crime plan were described by an eminent criminologist as “designed to grab headlines”. The creative, critical thinking he applies to the Met’s balance sheets seems to evaporate on contact with the Met itself. | Yet in the other part of his role as Johnson’s proxy as London’s police and crime commissioner - as the man holding the Metropolitan Police Service to account on behalf of the capital’s people - Greenhalgh’s hard-wired default is one of deference to uniforms and a seemingly unquestioning belief that cutting crime is all about numbers of “bobbies on the beat”. The targets and truisms of his police and crime plan were described by an eminent criminologist as “designed to grab headlines”. The creative, critical thinking he applies to the Met’s balance sheets seems to evaporate on contact with the Met itself. |
| One Labourite assures me with glee that Greenhalgh is unelectable. Maybe, and maybe his party agrees. If so, who might it persuade to save the day? Goldsmith’s intentions are unclear, as are those of TV’s Karren Brady about whom there’s been talk. Mayorwatch reports that the admirably independent London Assembly member Andrew Boff will give it a go, that his gentlemanly colleague James Cleverly has yet to rule himself out, and that Johnson’s eminent chief of staff Sir Edward Lister - the former Wandsworth council leader who once co-authored a pamphlet on localism with Greenhalgh - is likely to find himself being urged to seek the top job in 2016. | One Labourite assures me with glee that Greenhalgh is unelectable. Maybe, and maybe his party agrees. If so, who might it persuade to save the day? Goldsmith’s intentions are unclear, as are those of TV’s Karren Brady about whom there’s been talk. Mayorwatch reports that the admirably independent London Assembly member Andrew Boff will give it a go, that his gentlemanly colleague James Cleverly has yet to rule himself out, and that Johnson’s eminent chief of staff Sir Edward Lister - the former Wandsworth council leader who once co-authored a pamphlet on localism with Greenhalgh - is likely to find himself being urged to seek the top job in 2016. |
| Full judgement on both Massow and Greenhalgh should wait until they have laid out more of their ideas. But it is already clear that the Conservative mayoral field will need to become far stronger than it is so far. | Full judgement on both Massow and Greenhalgh should wait until they have laid out more of their ideas. But it is already clear that the Conservative mayoral field will need to become far stronger than it is so far. |