The BBC in London is going very much to town this week on the first anniversary of Boris Johnson’s election as Mayor.
The tone of their reporting is, at it has always been, looking for things to carp about and criticise in a way that was never once done when their darling, Ken Livingstone, held the office.
I recall that even when Livingstone, tired and emotional after a party, asked a Jewish reporter whether he had been a concentration camp guard, and was suspended for a month by the Standards Board for England because of it, the London BBC’s contribution was to express major indignation that this body had dared to sit in judgement on Ken.
On the other hand, when Boris expressed his views on Sir Ian Blair’s leadership of the Met. Police – views which the BBC itself had often voiced – and Blair resigned, suddenly Blair became a heroic victim anf Boris the vilain of the piece.