Johnson's Monstrous Waste

The water cannon Boris Johnson bought as London Mayor have been sold as scrap with a loss of £300,000 – at our expense. The ‘Guardian’ has compiled a useful list of Johnson’s other expensive stupidities, below (20.11.18). We can’t afford this man in public office!

How he got through £940m

At a net loss of £311,809.17, Boris Johnson’s ill-fated water cannon were one of his cheaper public spending splurges as mayor of London. The total cost of all of his most high-profile vanity projects ran to £940m, an investigation by the Guardian revealed last year.

The water cannon can be added to the Garden Bridge and plans for an airport in the Thames estuary as projects ending in complete failure.

Five other Johnson projects – the new Routemaster bus, hire bikes, the Emirates Air Line cable car, the conversion of the Olympic stadium and the ArcelorMittal Orbit helterskelter – did go ahead at a combined cost of more than £900m. All ran into problems after turning out to be far more expensive than promised.

Garden Bridge

Some £52m of public money was squandered on a project that was never started.

New Routemaster

The £321.6m bill was considerably more than Johnson promised. The buses had new windows fitted after being dubbed “saunas on wheels”.

Emirates Air Line

The world’s most expensive urban cable car cost the public £24m even after a hefty sponsorship deal.

Hire bikes

Johnson claimed the bikes could be provided at no public cost. They ended up costing £225m.

Thames Estuary airport

Transport for London set aside £5.2m for a feasibility study for an airport few others thought feasible.

Olympic Stadium

The stadium was converted to a football ground for West Ham United at a taxpayer cost of £305.5m.

ArcelorMittal Orbit

Johnson had the idea after bumping into the steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal in Davos. The cost climbed to £6.1m after a £3m helter-skelter was “foisted on” Anish Kapoor’s tower.

fI_1G�