Boris Johnson and the cost of inept leadership

Yesterday the Fire strike, tonight the tubes are on strike. There is a common theme. Boris Johnson. He's the man in charge. The cost of these strikes is enormous. Both are unnecessary. Both will be solved when management and unions compromise, as they surely will. In both cases management are taking a hard line. In both cases, it's ordinary Londoners rather than the bosses who ultimately suffer. In both cases, the changes management want to impose have implications for the safety of Londoners. The fire strike is about protecting fire cover and firemens efficiency. In the tube strike it's about enusring that stations are manned.

In both cases Boris Johnson is nowhere to be seen. He's the boss and he's our representative as Mayor, he should be banging heads together to get both disputes resolved. The heads he needs to bang are those of the management. Although Boris likes to pretend it's all about Union intransigence, the Firemen aren't on strike elsewhere. Bob Crow leads the RMT and they are a national rail union. They aren't on strike everywhere else. In my experience, strikes are a sign of inept leadership. Given that Boris thinks his old chum Brian Coleman is the man best suited to solving the problems, it's clear that he doesn't understand how to run a whelk stall, let alone the worlds greatest city.

Don't fall for the spin Boris likes to give. It's his fault. He should show a bit of leadership in both disputes. His negligence is criminal.