Read Mike's column about the upcoming battle for London Mayor

Printed in today's Barnet Press:

I was delighted to welcome Mayor Boris Johnson to Finchley last week when he came to officially open the upgraded Henlys Corner and visit businesses in Brent Cross Shopping Centre.  By coincidence this was shortly after the new Routemaster, or ‘Boris bus’, was showcased in Golders Green.

With the Mayoral elections just 18 weeks away it’s a good time to reflect on how Boris has performed over his first term.  For me his visit last week neatly demonstrated the good work that he has been doing.  Outer London was ignored by his predecessor, but Boris has invested in important infrastructure like Henlys Corner at a time of budget constraint, creating jobs and improving travel for all road users.

The previous Mayor was known as the ‘Zone One Mayor’ but Boris has corrected this, funding the Dollis Valley Green Walk, planting hundreds of street trees in the Borough’s poorer areas so they too can be leafy, funding improvements to High Barnet town centre and recently confirming £1m to makeover North Finchley.  As promised, the unpopular bendy buses have been banished from our city’s roads and a modernised Routemaster is on its way.

Despite the problems we saw last summer there has been a 23.5% drop in youth crime in Barnet under Boris.  At the same time overall crime has dropped by 13.5%, thanks in part to the extra 1,000 police officers that now patrol our streets.  Most importantly all this has been achieved by Boris without him once raising his portion of Council Tax.

Next year I hope to hop on a new Routemaster to Westminster, glide through Henlys Corner and take a moment to contemplate the fact my Council Tax bill hasn’t gone up.  Whether I get to do that or not is, of course, down to the voters of London.  But I’ll be backing Boris.