Plaudits for London Mayor’s heroics

Four young girls trying to mug an old lady. A hero comes from nowhere on a push bike. He chased away the girls and rescued the lady. It sounds like a scene from a movie. But it was a real incident.

The hero was none other than the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. The incident happened in a busy corner of central London. Johnson didn’t reveal it to anyone. But the news spread like wild fire. Later he admitted to a TV crew that he did the right thing as a citizen. The joke was that the lady in trouble has voted against Boris at the previous mayoral election.

There are more matters to be concerned in this little story. One is that “hasn’t the Mayor of London got a car, that he rides a bike to work”.

It is about a fifteen minute ride from his residence to the mayor’s office. He peddles his mountain bike in the morning rush hour and returns home the same way. The other is that ‘how come he travels without any bodyguards, people to carry the mobiles and files etc.”

Official vehicle

I am a bit reluctant to say that I live in London as people might think the city council cannot afford an official vehicle for it’s mayor. I wish I can say that I am from Colombo as it protects the dignity of the Mayor who is provided with every comfort that the London mayor cannot even dream of. Although they say some politicians in London ride bicycles thinking of the environment, I think it might be a story to cover the shortage of funds available for transport facilities.

London Mayor Boris Johnson

Even British Parliamentarians have not the fortune of travelling in duty free cars with security escort. I think the main reason for not issuing duty free permits for MPs in England is that they do not need money to print posters or cutouts for their election campaigns. Such things in election campaigns are prohibited. Even government ministers have to get vehicles from the ‘car pool’. Their wives or servants have no ‘government car luck’ to shuttle between schools and beauty parlours. Although they cannot afford cars for the British MPs, they spend plenty of money supporting third world countries by way of loans and funding development projects. It is funny that they mistakenly think that Sri Lanka is poor.

Whatever it is the government is not prepared to misuse the properties of the state. When Tony Blair was the Prime Minister, his wife travelled to work by train. Still there are many MPs who ride bicycles in and out of London. There are High Court judges who ride bicycles to work.

Election campaign

It was about 20 years ago,while walking down a busy street in London,when I saw a policeman standing outside a shop. As it is unusual for a police officer to stand still, I thought there must be something happening inside that shop. Although we live in London, we are Sri Lankans. So I was curious to see what was happening in the shop.

Suddenly, a suited gent came out of the shop. He came straight to me smiling and asked whether I like to see the Foreign Secretary (minister).

He asked my name and where I originally came from and what I was doing in London and went in to the shop. I then came to know that Douglas Hurd, the then Foreign Secretary was inside the shop. There was an election campaign going on at that time. I stood by a lamp post where I could clearly see the shop door.

After a minute or so that gent came out with Mr. Hurd. He came to me smiling and shook my hand saying “Hello Mr. Hegoda I hear that you come from a beautiful country and are doing an interesting job here, well done keep it up.” I was speechless. Although I had seen him on TV, it was the first time I saw him in person.

I came home and told my wife that I will vote Conservative until I die. The British Foreign Secretary (Foreign Minister) travelling about with just one officer and one policeman.

It is very unlikely that British politicians use excessive means to travel on UK roads. Even the Queen has only two Police motor bike outriders as her security.

They arrive at junctions about thirty seconds before she arrives and halt the traffic. Officers blow whistles to alert the other drivers. The entire show is done within seconds. Even at the height of IRA terrorist activities, the then British Prime Minister John Major walked about two hundred metres to Parliament from his office at Downing Street.

If one asks me why England is a good place to live in, I have a few answers. It is also a good place to work. But whatever the reason, I always prefer living in Sri Lanka than any other country in the world.