Boris, geography teacher
A far cry from Beijing
Saturday, 30, Aug 2008 12:00
Could Boris Johnson be the best geography teacher that never was?
The new mayor of London has spent much of his professional life mapping the political landscape but has recently turned his attention to shaping it for real. Or, at least, managing it. Mr Johnson has been thinking big since his return from the world stage in Beijing.
A climate change action plan, the first for any major city we are told, is the occasion of this seismic shift in thinking about the man whose only link with the word "global" has been when it's connected with the phrase "itinerary of apology".
With the help of a few of his friends at City Hall Mr Johnson has produced a draft plan which will help mitigate the impact of climate change, one of the world's biggest and most pressing issues, on the capital. He stands, on the banks of the grey Thames on a grey August day, telling the congregated reporters about his bold plans to prevent the city from overheating or suffering from drought. Then there's the risk from the North Sea.
"We want to make it absolutely clear that, you know, this is not a threat that has gone away simply because you've got an effective Thames barrier," he points out.
The crowd are impressed: this is a very good point, they feel. Unfortunately he is unable to follow it up because the drone of an aircraft taking off from nearby City airport drowns him out. There's something ironic about this, I think, but am too busy furiously pretending to be a press photographer to think about it properly.
Mr Johnson, meanwhile, has moved on. He is explaining why he proposes London should prepare for an increased flood risk through handy management strategems. London's rivers need dealing with, like some naughty child. Urban areas need to learn to absorb and store rainfall, like a mentally efficient student. And public awareness needs to be raised. Education, that's it!
It's a little later that Mr Johnson treats politics.co.uk to a little of his geological wisdom. This, we can only conclude, was lodged in his head during his spare time - surely he didn't have to bone up on all this for the election campaign?
"It's only a twinkling of an eye in geological terms since this river we're standing by was part of a great big European super-river," Mr Johnson tells me.
"The North Sea didn't exist. The changes we've seen, though we call them huge and we expect them to be huge, are microscopic in comparison with the changes that can happen over a period of hundreds of thousands of years."
He's warming to his subject. It continues - somehow his former constituency of Henley is responsible for the Thames passing through London at all - but in a fog of confusion. It's like I'm back in school, not listening yet again. I think to myself: Is this all I can get from the mayor? Geological trivia more suited to the classroom? It's hardly the cut and thrust of political debate.
Maybe I'm not the journalist I thought I was. But I try my hand with something a bit more controversial anyway. What lessons does Mr Johnson take from the political career of King Canute, who famously got his feet wet after commanding the incoming sea to halt at his feet? Could it be his grandiose climate change plans are a little far-reaching?
"What King Canute was doing was demonstrating the limits of human power and the limits of our ability to change huge climactic meteorological forces," Mr Johnson says wisely.
"King Canute is always cited as evidence of a vainglorious politician who thought he could turn back the waves. Of course that's completely wrong, isn't it? Number one journalistic howler."
Ah, so I was wrong after all. It's not a geography teacher Mr Johnson should be: history seems more up his street. At least he didn't give me detention.
Alex Stevenson