Westminster: Boris has achieved little of note as Mayor |

Wednesday 15th July 2009 | 15:08

Westminster: Boris has achieved little of note as Mayor

Majorities of MPs, journalists and insiders across the political spectrum agree that so far, Boris Johnson's mayoralty has suffered from a sense of drift

There is a cross-party consensus within the political community that Boris Johnson has so far acheived little of note during his tenure as London Mayor.

That’s the latest verdict from the PoliticsHome Phi100 panel, over three quarters of whom agree with the assessment that since Johnson took over as Mayor there had been ‘no notable achievement, no sense that anything important will change, no grip’.

The Phi100 includes frontbench MPs from all the main parties as well as media commentators, party strategists and heads of think tanks.

The politically balanced panel were asked to say whether they agreed or disagreed with the following statement about Boris Johnson’s mayoralty:

'There’s no notable achievement, no sense that anything important will change, no grip. Real problems are not solved – in fact, there’s not even a discernible attempt to solve them.'

77% – including majorities of left-leaning, right-leaning, Lib Dem and non-aligned panellists – agreed with this judgement.

18% strongly agreed.

Expectations were low

A left-leaning media panellist said: ‘Labour got Johnson really wrong in the election when they went for him being a racist. He isn't a racist, he's a chump.’

A parliamentarian complained that ‘he has stripped the Police and other areas of vital resources.’

A Lib Dem panellist confessed that ‘expectations were low or realistic from the start!’

Overall approval - but slipping

The regular Phi100 Mayoral Tracker shows that a majority of the panel still feel that Johnson is doing a good job as Mayor, although approval is declining.

55% say that Johnson is doing a good job as Mayor, but the figure is down 19% since last month.

The Mayor will be hoping to reverse this trend before his net rating moves into negative territory for the first time.

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