Libertarians in High Places

Over at Harry's Place, blogger David T explains why he couldn't support a third term for Ken Livingstone as the mayor of London: Ken told David, then a 13-year-old schoolboy who thought he had a love of fire salamanders in common with the politician, to "shut up." OK, it's more complicated than that, but it's kinda delicious to think that Livingstone, a nasty piece of work, narrowly missed out on being re-anointed in part because he mouthed off to a barely adolescent child who, years later, wouldn't campaign for him.

In any case, Boris Johnson, the tousle-haired new Tory mayor, will have to prove that he's a lot more than an underexperienced (if definitely colorful, even eccentric) toff.

Some aspects of Johnson's background are encouraging. He wrote a spot-on preface for Robert Huntington's otherwise mediocre book on the Nanny State a few years ago, and his own columns (Johnson is a former magazine editor and writer) have been approvingly mentioned on this blog more than once.

That said, I've followed the race pretty closely this past month, and Johnson, as is politicians' wont, turns out to have rather malleable principles. When his battle with Livingstone heated up, he made some headspinning pronouncements that called his libertarian bona fides into question, including a promise to appoint a Greater London Alcohol Czar; a vow to put more community police officers on the street (read: poorly trained volunteers in uniforms); and a proposal to expand asset forfeiture laws against alleged drug offenders, presumably because that's worked so well in the United States.

Also, a not-so-old statement of Johnson's came to light that had Hizonner musing that "If gay marriage was OK — and I was uncertain on the issue — then I saw no reason in principle why a union should not be consecrated between three men, as well as two men; or indeed three men and a dog."

I'm glad to see Livingstone kicked out. Good riddance to "Red Ken," who compared a reporter of Jewish descent to "a nazi prison guard," who shamed the memory of the 2005 tube bombing victims by repeatedly cozying up to Islamic firebrand preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi, and who believes that it's perfectly appropriate to give verbal public blowjobs to Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez if it means getting some cheap gasoline out of the rabid Castro wannabe (not so different from these guys, really).

Then again, I look at Johnson and realize the perennial wisdom of the phrase "Be careful what you wish for."