Sometimes I suddenly realise that I miss Boris Johnson. Not very often, mind you. Usually I just shake my head. The brilliant columnist Craig Brown called Johnson a "miscast."As prime minister, he was assigned an unsuitable role. Whatever was wrong with Boris, life has become a lot duller since his departure, almost three years ago now.
This feeling of loss struck me this week while walking along the Thames from the City, the financial heart of the city, to Westminster, the political centre. I suddenly paused at a spot between Blackfriars Bridge and Waterloo Bridge, realising that the Boris Bridge could have graced this spot.
Perhaps not everyone knows what I'm talking about. Boris proposed building a new bridge over the Thames, but not just any bridge. This bridge would be a kind of city garden, albeit without houses. Incidentally, this was something I personally found regrettable. Nowadays, bridges simply connect or improve communication between places that in the past tried to avoid each other. This wasn’t always true. Take the original London Bridge. It was lined with houses, like on the Ponte Vecchio in Florence—simply too charming to describe.
Brilliant, I thought, when I first heard about Boris Bridge. The same was true, by the way, of the beautiful Boris Bus and the evocative Boris Bike. I can't think of another politician whose name is associated with so many iconic projects.
Incidentally, the Garden Bridge wasn't actually his own idea. The original plan came from Absolutely Fabulous actress Joanna Lumley. Sadly for her, the Lumley Bridge doesn't sound as catchy.
It all went wrong because of money, never Johnson's strong suit. Johnson insisted that the required £200 million—it could easily have been fifty million more, if anyone noticed—and would be financed "privately."
The wish, as is often the case with Boris, was the father of the thought. After Johnson was succeeded as London mayor by Sadiq Khan, it became clear that the necessary money, including the extra fifty million or so, was simply not available. I remember my astonishment that almost fifty million of taxpayers' money had been spent on this "private" initiative.
But it's still a shame, I thought, as I looked out at the rippling water where a fascinating, never-before-seen bridge could have stood.
But who knows. Rumors of Boris Johnson's return persist. It would, I think, be another disaster for the country. But if he did, we would again be told that it’s possible to build castles in the air. And that's worth something too.
That's why I sometimes miss him, Boris Johnson.
And the Boris hair!