Yesterday I went to the Olympic Park and bumped into the Mayor. He wasn't there initially, but it was obvious he was coming because you don't gather a selection of environmentally friendly public service vehicles and park them up in a line in front of the Olympic Stadium otherwise.
Also the press don't normally turn up to take photos of a hydrogen-fuelled bus and an electric taxi unless there'll be somebody interesting to talk to. Half a dozen media bubbles had already arrived and were milling around the officially designated viewpoint near a couple of hastily erected gazebos. I watched two locally-based bicycle couriers wheel over to their correct place in the line-up. It was hard to tell which police were on security duty and which were merely here to stand next to a non-polluting vehicle. I recognised the BBC's Tom Edwards who was pacing around, chatting to his crew and occasionally interviewing attendees on a bench.
Aha, I thought, this must be the press event for the launch of the extended Ultra Low Emission Zone. But it wasn't 10am yet and I bet myself that the Mayor wouldn't be turning up until then, so I went off for a quick walk and admired the not-yet impressive autumn foliage down Tessa Jowell Boulevard.
At ten o'clock hey presto the Mayor turned up. I didn't see how he arrived but I expect it was either by public transport or in an electric vehicle because any other option would have been political suicide. He had a small entourage with him, and what with all those standing by their vehicles and the media scrum I counted at least 50 people present, because that's how many it takes to deliver a gobbet of news to the wider populace.
After holding court for a few minutes the Mayor walked over to the line of vehicles, starting with the Royal Mail van, and started chatting. You have to do these things when you want the TV cameras to go away with footage of cheery eco-friendly engagement. While I was watching all this a casually dressed thirty-something man came and sat behind me on a bench for no readily obvious reason. I assumed he was a plain clothes police officer keeping an eye on things because you can't be too careful when the Mayor's on public walkabout, and also because that's exactly where I'd have sat if I was a plain clothes police officer keeping an eye on things.
The mayor's progress down the line was glacial, suggesting he'd be ages getting to the Dial-A-Ride minibus let alone the ambulance, so I went off for another walk. This time I headed to the top of the park, dodging the mud where the riverside paths flooded in last week's downpour and wondering where all the waterfowl had gone because you hardly see any birds on this stretch of the Lea any more.
At eleven o'clock the Mayor looked like he'd just finished with the final vehicle and was now standing to one side at the heart of a huddle. It could have been with his own team or it could have been with journalists from the national press, I'm guessing the latter, but the conversation was again taking ages. Indeed my biggest takeaway from the entire event is just how long he took talking to every individual group of attendees. Boris would have gabbled through in minutes, but Sadiq seemed much keener to hang around.
Meanwhile the TV crews were looking increasingly underused. They'd already got their footage of the line-up and interviewed all the potential minor interviewees, but they couldn't finish the job until they'd had a proper chat with the Mayor. I bet he chats to the BBC first, I thought, but instead he walked over to another camera and spoke earnestly to a completely different channel. Rather than hang around I headed off on yet another walk and noted that the Dutch barge has closed its outdoor seating area for the season.
At quarter to twelve Sadiq finally got round to talking to the BBC. Normally London's regional news teams get first dibs with the Mayor but the introduction of the ULEZ counts as a national story so this time they'd had to wait for Sky News and other national channels first. Tom Edwards now got his long-awaited interview and it was of a decent length, but by this point he'd been standing around for at least two hours having long finished all his spiels to camera. Even the vehicles in the backdrop had started to peel off and drive away. I followed the hydrogen bus to the traffic lights and walked to the top of the mound with the rings.
I came back nearer half past twelve and Tom had gone but the Mayor was still talking to one final group of non-TV journalists. He'd now been here for two and a half hours, engaging with all sorts and no doubt trotting out the same carefully-chosen phrases time after time to get his message across. The job of Mayor is not the glamorous role you might assume it to be, unless you're the kind of Mayor who prefers brief jokey chats and a smile to the camera.
And all this, as it turned out, was for one minute of footage on the BBC and ITV lunchtime regional news and another one minute burst in the evening. The ULEZ led the local news for several minutes, as befits the big story of the day, but including affected drivers and campaigning mothers for balance meant the Olympic Park line-up played only a minor role in the overall coverage. The effort that goes into providing a backdrop for the news is considerable, and needs to be otherwise those 45 seconds would have been zero. And the effort that goes into holding politicians to account shouldn't be underrated either, because standing around in the Olympic Park for three hours is hardly the best use of anybody's time.
