Boris has more to prove than Corbyn

Boris Johnson with Jeremy Corbyn (Image: faz.net)

Earlier this week saw the end of Party Conference Season and therefore kicked-off an interesting autumn of British politics. The past two weeks in particular saw a time of reflection. The smaller parties gloated about the noise they created during the previous general election campaign. Certainly they heated debates and caused a stir in how people looked at politics, but their causes are getting recognised. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats, that became a 'small party' overnight, showcased themselves as the 'defiant one'. Labour presented themselves as the 'rebuilding party', quickly forgetting last May ever happened. Ed who?

However it was the Conservative conference that caught a lot of people's eyes. While the party's intention was to highlight this was the first Tory conference as a Tory-led government since 1996, the press decided to turn people's attention to 2020. Before the general election just gone, David Cameron announced that his second term (2015-2020) will be his last as Prime Minister. Whether he doesn't want to do those television debates again, or whether he saw how Margaret Thatcher's third term went and thought "Maybe Not" - I suppose we won't know his reasons for a while yet. Regardless, we saw three Conservative politicians in particular this week that took to the podium in their party conference in Manchester that has fuelled the speculations they would be in the running to replace Cameron.

The first potential candidate is George Osborne and possibly Cameron's closest ally. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had certainly convinced a lot of people before May that he, and not his Shadow counterpart at the time, Ed Balls, was trusted to run the economy. And since May he has shown his true colours. While he introduced deep cuts to public services in 2010, you could tell he was somewhat held back by the Liberal Democrats. I could sense that Danny Alexander, the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury was holding his values back. If Alexander wasn't there I'm sure Osborne would have cut tax credits, as he controversially introduced in his last budget, much sooner.

Then we have Theresa May, the current Home Secretary. At present she's the female protagonist of the Conservative Party. Education Secretary Nicky Morgan and Priti Patel, the Employment Minister, are just a shadow to May's influence. Of late she's been acting the Secretary of State to Immigration as she claims responsibility of Border Controls. The current migrant/refugee (delete as applicable in your eyes) crisis has dominated her agenda and Cameron likes to think of her as being the person to bring the right-leaning voters back to supporting their party.

Centre: Theresa May and George Osborne (Image: Guardian)

Should Theresa May succeed and win the next general election she would be the second female Prime Minister and you can tell with her recent no-nonsense and somewhat radical approach towards immigration, she is pulling similar moves to Thatcher. This could be fitting considering the Tories are convinced Labour leader Corbyn would take Britain back to the 80s.

So we have Austerity Osborne and Iron Lady 2.0 - both of which represents an overwhelming sense of serious power. Whether this sort of power is going to benefit the future of Great Britain, I'll leave that judgement to you. But their competition is perhaps the dark horse - someone who, while offers similar views, has a certain presence that only Osborne and May crave. Of course, I'm talking about Boris Johnson.

Bonkers Boris - as I'd like to call him - is the departing Mayor of London who has already defeated Labour twice, or shall I say Ken Livingston twice. He is considered the more 'celebrity' candidate, he is well-known and popular, and is part of the increasingly famous Johnson clan. But because he's been Mayor of a capital city for eight years, and had to deal with more issues than Finance or Home Affairs like Osborne or May, we know what he really stands for on broader issues like transport and education.

Out of the three rumoured candidates, my preferred choice, if I was ever a Conservative voter, I would back Boris as the man to succeed David Cameron. If you compared London when he was first Mayor in 2008 with 2016 when he departs (and should no disaster happen between then), the city is completely transformed. It is more than a tourist hotspot. All of a sudden, Shoreditch, Stratford and Hackney are the 'cool' and 'trendy' places to visit and party. As the technological revolution spirals out of control, we now have Tech City near Old Street and Moorgate which has attracted the most profitable multi-million pound businesses to invest in the city. London is luxurious and while pollution is still a huge problem, the capital is glamorous.

And who could forget the 2012 Olympics? While it was Labour who pushed the Games to be hosted in London, only Boris could manage to monopolise it the way he has. He puts the capital C in Capitalism and many people have genuinely profited from it. He has delivered and whoever replaces him as Mayor has big, big shoes to fill in.

Modern London landscape (Image: Sunday Times)

You're probably expecting a 'however' in what I'm saying - and you assume correctly. While marketing London with applied makeup has made the place look good, Boris has to realise how many lucky stars he was given by Westminster. As he's part of a party that supports austerity, I don't think he's noticed austerity has taken place. If he was ever voted Prime Minister, would he guarantee the people of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Glasgow, Liverpool, Stoke-on-Trent, Swansea, Southampton the funds that he was given to transform London?

London is now years ahead of everywhere else in the UK, it's the envy of developed capitals across the world. There has been plenty of talk outside of London and the South East of England in general, that investment has been unequally distributed from the capital and not spread far and wide. The majesticness of London comes at a price for people from the rest of the country who aspire to move there. I've seen housing adverts near me that states 'affordable 1-2 bedroom apartments from £500,000'. This is the reality of success, but this isn't reflected on people's salaries and only sparks fury among those who want to be part of Generation Buy, not Generation Rent.

Boris would need to find a way to ensure that the wealth of London, and the investment from abroad injected in the capital constantly, is distributed reasonably. But can you imagine Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich for example, putting a £1m+ offer on a place in Doncaster? Can you imagine Qatari billionaires making Scarborough the next Knightsbridge? If Boris really wants the rest of the country to prosper, he has to sacrifice the downgrading of a city he's been Mayor of for nearly eight years.

At the moment, Boris offers policies that requires the scrapping of austerity. He claims Jeremy Corbyn's policies are fantasy - I can claim that so are Boris's. He has five years to prove how he'll find the investment to get the rest of the country what London is getting. So much money is being put in this city and they're milking every penny. I'd love poverty-stricken cities in the UK (and of course in other countries too) to have an ounce of this investment too.