Boris Johnson's no show

I am beginning to wonder what Boris Johnson is for. His election victory a year ago brought a moment of optimism. At the very least, London's new mayor had deprived Ken Livingstone of a third term. Britain's most popular Tory brought some gaiety to the life of the capital. For all the bumbling, rumour had it he also had a plan.

Since then? Well, not a lot unless you count a cabaret turn in Beijing's Olympic stadium, a run-in with Labour's hapless home secretary over the leadership of the Metropolitan Police and a regular slot on Radio Four's Today programme. Johnson, it must be said, is never short of publicity. He invariably has something to say, and is ever in reach of a microphone in which to say it. Politics for the mayor is a branch of showbiz. "Boris" is a brand. By and large, he adds a welcome dose of good humour to politics, even if the classicisms have begun to pall. Yet for all the media attention, the mayor has somehow contrived to be less than visible when it comes to the big strategic issues facing the nation's capital. His practical vision for London is as fuzzy as it was on the day of the election.

National politics seems more of a draw. Only the other day, Johnson popped up on television to berate David Cameron. The Tory leader's error had been to hesitate about overturning the government's new 50p top rate of income tax. Johnson, who has never really bought in to the patrician Cameron's cuddlier Conservatism, muttered something about the danger of scaring away the City's last highly paid bankers.

The mayor has been outspoken on the subject of bringing back selective education ­- the 11-plus and grammar schools of old. This is a popular policy among grassroots Conservatives; but one Cameron would rather sideline. The snag for Johnson is that neither the tax burden on the wealthy nor secondary education fall within the mayoral remit. There is little love lost between Johnson and his party's would-be prime minister. The rivalry may intensify if, as the polls predict, Cameron strolls into Downing Street. The premiership, as Johnson half-admits when pressed, is the job he would really like. You get the impression he is not sure Cameron will be quite up to the task.

Johnson, of course, would say he has been much busier in City Hall than my account suggests. For one thing, he has cut back the bloated and self-aggrandising budgets left by his predecessor. For another, he has scrapped the plan to levy a super congestion charge on gas-guzzling four-wheel drives.

I have my doubts about this last measure. Livingstone may have been indulging in the politics of class war, but surely a punitive impost on so-called Chelsea tractors was justified on grounds of taste? What else? The hated "bendy" bus will soon be replaced by an updated version of the much-loved double-decker Routemaster.

On the debit side, Johnson has given in to the developers and reneged on a manifesto pledge to prevent the cityscape from being despoiled by randomly distributed skyscrapers. For most Londoners, these are decisions at the margin. On the two most important issues - the unreconstructed state of the Metropolitan Police and the financial crisis facing London Underground - we have not heard much. Yet if the mayor cannot get policing and the Tube right, all the rest, including preparations for the 2012 Olympics, will count for nought. To be fair, he has put more police on London's transport network. His decision to force the resignation of Ian Blair as commissioner of the Metropolitan Police might have been a sign that he was also going to seize control of London's policing. Few can doubt the need for radical reform of a force that is a bastion of provider-dominated unaccountability.

In dismissing Blair, the mayor made a statement: the police would be called to account. He cannot now complain if Londoners, whose confidence in the police has slumped, expect him to get on with it. As for the Underground, this is a mess of the government's making. The private-public partnership to modernise the Tube has ended, as predicted, in financial crisis. But blaming Gordon Brown will not fix things.

Political leaders have to take hard decisions. Johnson, we know, is a very ambitious politician. He has yet to demonstrate an ambition for London.

- Financial Times