Apparently some people might not think that the Stop Boris blog would have provided an accurate and impartial take on last night’s Newsnight debate, for some reason. Honestly, next you’ll be saying the Evening Standard can’t be trusted to provide balanced coverage of the election campaign.

The account posted here last night is not exactly contradicted elsewhere on the internet though, and not just by anti-Boris types.

It’s particularly interesting to have a read through some of the comments on Iain Dale’s miserable coverage. (Presumably part of the reason for his grumpiness is that his party’s candidate for Mayor had just been exposed as a useless idiot!)

Some of the highlights from the comments are:

Sadly and very surprisingly though, Boris was crap - I mean just really REALLY bad. He had verbal dioreha, was blabbing on and saying nothing cohessive, speaking way too fast, unable/unwilling to answer the question on the cost of new routemasters (bad briefing), which was reminiscent of Paxman’s eviscertation of Micheal Howard!

If he had used his wit it owuld have been better.

I thought he was going to walk it!

Shabolic performance by Boris and I agree with Iain’s analysis of old “What’s his name?” (the Liberal Democrat candidate. Ken was relaxed but none of them was able tog et a word in edge ways. Someone tell Boris to stop interrupting!!!!!

If, like me, you have grave misgivings about leaving London in the hands of an arrogant Trotskyite berk then you would do the sensible thing and vote for the candidate most likely to oust the git. That would be Bojo. The trouble is - he’s shit. On tonight’s evidence this city would be in the hands of a bumbling, rambling, clueless(if likeable) nitwit.
Stop waffling on about bloody bendy buses, please! What’s he on about now, Routemasters? WTF???
Very depressing. Poor old London. It deserves much, much better.

Johnson reminded me of a graduate in his first ever job interview and he hadn’t done a stroke of preparation. Lamentable

The Tories dug their own grave by appointing BoJo. I almost wish they had s erious candidate, as I dislike Leavingsoon as much as anyone.

Boris Johnson came over as a lightweight joke. Why on earth did the Tories choose him? He bumbled his way through the whole event.

Boris was by far and away the worst. And Paxman actually showed how unmanageable the clown actually is. […]

Boris would be a disaster for London. Slippery, wet, dangerously vague, bullshitter.

Boris was just an embarassment. As a Tory, I don’t know who to vote for now. Why didn’t he prepare?

Andrew Sparrow on the Guardian’s Politics Blog has further coverage, and links to further coverage still. Dave Hill, as seen on BBC London this evening, has a brief response to Newsnight too, while Dave Cole goes into more depth.

Alternatively, rather than relying on everyone else’s coverage, you could just watch it for yourself. Here are two useful links, depending on how much time you have to spare:

• Two minutes: Paxman despairs at Boris’s bendy bus blathering
• 32 minutes: the whole thing (in RealPlayer format)

Enjoy – and let us know what you think. Will the polls continue to slip (slightly) away from Boris if he keeps up these performances?

P.S. Liberal Conspiracy have a similar, shorter but better lip-sync’ed video of the Boris bus blathering on their home page at the moment. Apologies to them for the fact that the StopBoris.org spam filter meant I didn’t see their e-mail telling me this until three hours after they sent it!

This entry was posted on Wednesday 9 April 2008 at 18.26 by Mr. Stop Boris and is filed under BBC, Blogs, Buses, Conservatives, Events, Incompetence, Media, Polls. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS2 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.