You know when you get the munchies, man, like you totally gotta eat? At that level, I suppose the appointment of the woman once nicknamed ‘Rizla Rosie’ as London’s ‘food champion’ makes a certain amount of intuitive sense.
And given that Ms Boycott’s new gig at the Greater London Authority is unpaid, it would be nit-picking to cavil. If she sees her latest mission in life as being to ensure that capital dwellers devour their locally-produced greens, fair enough.
I won’t even ask exactly what it is one has to do to be a food champion. I mean, when someone is described as a tiddlywinks champion, you instantly get the picture; chances are, they are better at tiddlywinks than anybody else. But food champion? As job title inflation goes, that’s right up there with homelessness czar.
One rather suspects - given Rosie’s latest incarnation as the owner of an organic farm in Somerset – that she will be good at devising policies to prevent the repetition of the truly scandalous situation that recently saw Stoke Newington farmers’ market run out of seasonal purple-sprouting broccoli. That kind of thing is simply not on.
The more pressing question, though, might be to ask why it is that throughout most of the surrounding borough, it is easier to find kebab shops and KFCs rather than anywhere that stocks decent fresh vegetables.
She might also want to examine a distribution of income in London that absolutely precludes many from paying £3.99 for a small plastic punnet of blueberries. Only a thought.
All the same, it is sad to watch a political career shift decade by decade from socialist feminism to New Labourism to the Liberal Democrats to acting as an advisor for a rightwing Conservative administration in City Hall.
This woman is moving to the right almost as fast as Christopher Hitchens, and no amount of drugs can possibly provide an excuse for that.
Meanwhile, as we are discussing matters GLA, can I just stress that I am not at all jealous at the news that Livingstone sidemen John Ross, Redmond O’Neill and Simon Fletcher – all former members of the same Trotskyist grouping I used to be in – have been given £200,000 pay-offs? Bastards.
The picture, incidentally, shows Ms Boycott about her business as a lady farmer. She appears to be, er, clutching a large cock. Snigger, snigger.
Posted at 13:51, 5 August 2008
Comments (21)
Boycott also stood, in I think a European election, as part of a pro-Europe, independent Tory group.
Karadzic was first politically active as a Green, like Boycott. They're a rum lot, the ecologists.
And I'm laughing at the demise of the GLA apparatchiks who didn't give me that well paid GLA PR job (part of the feedback - 'don't think you have a large political knowledge' which was kind of true, in terms of their 'politics', I suppose) but my saying things like you have to turn (the useless) 'The Londoner' into a credible source of unbiased info visibly put them off in the interview.
You're laughing, Punchie? At £200,000 a time, I bet they are, too. All the way to the bank.
Purple broccoli?
Are YOU on drugs?
No, Miles. I know it is something you probably don't have the provinces. But it exists, and I am rather partial to it.
Check it out:
http://www.eattheseasons.co.uk/Archive/purple_sprouting_broccoli.htm
You can see why Johnson and his people responded with alacrity to Boycott's "gissa job" pitch.
The GLA press release takes delight in noting: "Rosie Boycott founded Spare Rib, a feminist magazine, in her early 20s and was the UK's first female editor of a British daily newspaper, the Independent on Sunday."
So Johnson is able to brandish the appointment of a leading figure in the formation of the modern women's movement to a post in his administration. And he won't have to pay her a penny.
Just the sort of thing he needs to throw dust in the eyes of anyone who might be upset about Johnson's actual record of constructing an administration whose senior figures, in sharp contrast to the situation under the previous mayor, consist overwhelmingly of white men.
And on the subject of the redundancy payoffs, I can only quote the words of Boris Johnson himself:
"The Mayor wants to make clear that he has no problem with the staff who by all accounts served the previous Mayor well. The Mayor has followed legal advice on this matter and made a decision with the taxpayer in mind. These members of staff are entitled to these settlements. They are only receiving what they are entitled to. Some members of staff have over 20 years loyal service in local government and payments were agreed with this in mind."
If Dave is going to have a go at former leftists who have moved to the right, perhaps he might reflect on what it says about his own leftwing credentials that he happily accepts the accuracy of a report in the Daily Mail.
We've already had Dave quoting Yedioth Ahronoth as a supposedly reliable source on Qaradawi.
What next, you wonder - a piece on asylum seekers based on a report in the Daily Express?
For the avoidance of doubt, NTB, my comments re: the pay-offs to my former comrades are intended to be light-hearted.
They are, of course, entitled to every penny specified in the contracts of employment. I'm only jealous.
She's a self-publicity machine, and convicted drink-driver, who now hires herself out to the Daily Mail for "Why I, as a former feminist, think women should...(fill in the blanks)".
End of. If you can name anyone outside of her own north london media set who gives a shit what she thinks, a fiver is yours.
Cheltenham Ladies College turned "hippie".
Think of her as the female Richard Branson, and you're not far off.
Dave
We have black pudding. But not purple broccoli.
Are you sure some spiv isn't fobbing you off with rhubarb?
Are we to assume that the next step for the Johnson administration is to ban processed food on the tube? Is there to be compulsory aerobics? Never mind about 'tzars' and 'champions' (maybe she can eat a record amount of boiled eggs in a minute), there really needs to be some honesty and just call these people 'health fuhrers'.
As for Stoke Newington: "easier to find kebab shops and KFCs rather than anywhere that stocks decent fresh vegetables.", when can I move? Are there chippies and chinese takeaways too?
Err surely the point is if Rosie Boycott is not being paid by the GLA where does her income come from? Or are we saying on the new/old Aristocracy should only be aloud to run London?
I am curious, do they publish a regular list of Mayoral appointees? and a breakdown of salaries? is there a source for that information?
what transparency exists to monitor all of the Mayor's special advisers?
anyone know?
I'm still confused. Why has Boris "let them eat cack" Johnson got a food champ?
Purple sprouting is true yummy broccoli unlike that nasty calabrese.
To be fair, I don't think Boycott stopped supporting Labour because she had moved to the right.
Of course, if Ken's team had been working on performance-related pay, they wouldn't have got a penny of compensation. :)
And further to the subject of those compensation payments, Dave Hill quotes a Tory councillor as saying:
"Boris Johnson must make clear that his own political advisers will only receive contract payments until the next Mayoral election or their contract ends - whichever comes first - and that not a penny of public money will be liable for payment to pension funds or other benefits at the date of the next election."
As I'm sure Letters From a Tory will agree, Johnson isn't going to that, is he?
One of Rosie's big ideas is to get ASBOed yoof to work on allotments.
I must admit, I wouldn't mind my own allotment (living in the Big Smoke) but that's a side issue.
Purple Sprouting Broccoli (there are white and yellow varieties) is one of the joys of Spring, like the slightly later Rhubarb.
Actually some young people already do work on allotments as part of their Community Service.
No doubt the unemployed will also be soon put to work (dressed in old gaol clothes and singing pictoresque chain-gang ditties) growing organic vegetables for toffs like Ms Boycott and Boris.
Purple broccoli sounds Blairite. As a good socialist, the only green I'll allow on my plate is red cabbage.
a0wiME FFFIILLUUUSSS5,