[Reposted] Mayor Boris Johnson: "A gigantic olympic schmoozathon that’s about to begin - investment for Brent Cross, Croydon,..."

Link to BBC web site and iPlayer

Andrew Marr: "A lot of people are desperately hoping that, out of these games, Britain, not simply London, gets some kind of economic lift – and yet quite a lot of the analysts say that it will be more like a blip than a real lift. What are you doing to ensure that the games leverage some profits, and some extra work, for British companies?"

Boris Johnson: "Well, this is a gigantic schmoozathon that’s about to begin, and after all, you’ve got the heads of most of the world’s great businesses coming to London in the course of the next few weeks. We’re going to be showing what London has to offer. We’re going to make it clear what fantastic opportunities for investment, not just in the olympic park, but across London – at Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea, in the royal docks, in Brent Cross, in Croydon, in Tottenham. There are amazing opportunities. We’re going to be selling London.

But don’t forget that the olympic games have already been responsible for fantastic investment in this city – pension funds from across the world are investing in the olympic site right now. You’ve got a massive Australian investment in the form of the Westfield shopping centre - 1.5-billion-pounds-worth - to say nothing of all the transport investment that is going in now, and that is transforming London.

So I really defy the critics of the olympics, who say that this is not producing economic benefits to the city. We can leverage those benefits. We can make sure that they continue to produce long-term returns."

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"No ant sees the big picture. No ant tells any other ant what to do…But the bottom line, says Iain Couzin, a biologist at Oxford and Princeton Universities, is that no leadership is required." - link

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Link to The Observer

The Observer:

"Johnson's Life of London by Boris Johnson - review"

"Ambition is at the core of Boris Johnson's London. Once described as 'the most ambitious man of his generation', Johnson likes to think of the city he now runs as 'fame's echo chamber', a place where rivals clash in 'a cyclotron of talent'.

"... But for all his schoolboy ebullience, the message is pitiless: competition is best, leave bankers alone, and the poor will benefit from the 'trickle-down effect'."