Boris the Buffoon - an insult to London

So Boris the Buffoon Johnson is the Tory candidate for Mayor of London. Heaven help us if his very personal brand of tomfoolery actually makes it into City Hall. A Conservative Party spokesman said the contest had "captured the interest of the public and helped challenge voter apathy". That's a joke. Boris won 75% of the votes cast in the open Tory primary, but only 20,000 people bothered to take part.

The Tories must be wondering what new skeletons are about to come tumbling out of Boris's cupboards and what embarrassing inanities are going to slip from his mouth. He is, as the Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell said in his conference speech, the "blondest suicide note in history" and proof positive that the Tories are still not fit to govern.

The Scream

This is my nephew Dominic reacting to news that climate change is going to destroy the world he's just been born into if we don't do something about it before he reaches adulthood. I thought it only best to scream too!

Safer Neighbourhoods Public Meeting

The Belsize Police Safer Neighbourhoods Panel held an excellent BBC Question Time-style public meeting in the Swiss Cottage Community Centre last night. Those present agreed that burglaries, theft from vehicles and anti-social behaviour should remain the Belsize police team’s top priorities. All three indicators have fallen since the team started its work last year, but Sgt Jason Moseley was careful to stress that it’s really important for people to report all crimes so that he knows which hotspots to target. We were told that Camden is about to start piloting a friendlier process for reporting crimes and contacting the police. And the manager of the Tesco in England’s Lane volunteered to have a yellow box painted on the pavement around his cashpoint following news that in Manchester this led to a 60% drop in street crime in the immediate area and in Camden Town it led to a decrease in aggressive begging.

Car-free bike day is a big success

Great to see so many people taking part in the London Freewheel mass bike ride today. Traffic was banned from 14km of central London roads to make way for more than 30,000 cyclists.

Camden Cycling Campaign members (including Camden Council's Cycling Champion, Cllr Paul Braithwaite) stewarded nearly 100 riders, including many small children safely from Swiss Cottage to The Mall to ride the circuit along the Thames to London Bridge.

Paul said: "The most heartening feature, apart from the bonhomie, was the thousands of enthusiastic children who took part. London has truly never seen ANYTHING like it!" Fantastic.