Comments on: What is London to expect from its new Mayor?

By: Helen

Helen — Tue, 06 May 2008 14:46:21 +0000

Yes and no, Jim. (Oh well, yes, the women must have liked him.) Certainly, most of it is personal as is Boris’s colourful private life, and there are the children to consider. But Ken has, on occasion, chid us all to be better parents as we do have rather a problem with wayward teenagers in London. You may have heard about some of the gang killings. 11 or 12 teenagers killed so far this year and we do not know the numbers wounded either by gun or knife or just beaten up. In the light of those comments, producing sprogs and then abandoning the mothers is not behaviour to be condoned. I think it was just one of many things that told against the man but not the most important one.

By: Jim MIller

Jim MIller — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:26:24 +0000

Thanks much for this interesting post.

I do want to quibble with one point: Some people must like Livingstone. In addition to his electoral successes, he fathered five children on three separate mothers, without marrying any of the women. (As far as I could tell, nearly everyone in London shares his belief that this behavior was “personal”, and not a matter for public scrutiny.)

By: Helen

Helen — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:57:57 +0000

York may be the capital of Yorkshire but hardly England. If Yorkshire wants to declare independence, most others will cheer. Personally I like Yorkshire and think the Yorkists had the real claim to the throne of England, not the Lancastrians, let alone the usurping Tudors. But then they did not rule from York but from Westminster.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:31:43 +0000

There's also this.

By: Helen

Helen — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:29:35 +0000

No, what happens is that the guns arrive from abroad under police escort and taken to the stadium in question. Then they are taken away again under police escort. We had this farce with the Commonwealth Games in Manchester a couple of years ago. Soon afterwards there was a rather nasty case of fatal shootings of teenage girls outside a club. They were somehow related to members of a gang whose rivals were out to get anyone they could. Our legislators and the police failed to see the tragic irony.

Our shooting teams have to train abroad. Pathetic, isn’t it.

Incidentally, the ban on handguns is across the whole of the UK, not just England and Wales. It went through under the Conservatives, before devolution.

By: Dan from Madison

Dan from Madison — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:42:07 +0000

Very interesting post Helen, thank you for putting it up. And good luck with those Olympics, I have never heard of a city actually making money off of one of those.

Which brings me to an interesting question. Chicago is trying to get the 2016 Olympics, but due to their restrictions on guns, the shooting events (those horrible target .22 long rifles!) would have to be held in a neighboring state of either Wisconsin or Indiana unless special legislation is passed. I understand that the whole country of England has some pretty tight restrictions on guns as well – would they have to hold the shooting events in Scotland or Wales?