Guppy and cock-ups

Boris Johnson's crime proposals have some serious stuff in them, of course, but you don't want to hear about that, do you? You want to hear about Boris mucking up the running order at his launch (and referring to David Davis as The Home Secretary). You also want to hear about Kevin Maguire attempting to kick Johnson over the Darius Guppy affair. Unsuccessfully, it sounds like.

Some of Boris' ideas sound a little, er, strange. And his promise to "chair the Metropolitan Police Authority" sounds like a threat. The spending plans include:

• A £150,000 trial of CCTV on London buses
• Swap funds for advertising to appointing 50 police officers
• Knife scanners at transport hubs and major events
• Swap funding for "Ken's personal press officers" to Rape Crisis Centres
• "New York-style crime mapping" to give neighbourhoods a better idea of what's happening

There's some eye-catching stuff (and we can only admire the subliminal association of "rape" with "press officers"). But the catch-all, scattergun nature of the proposals has already drawn fire, not least from Brian Paddick, who can be expected to know a thing or to. He's pointed out that CCTV doesn't limit crime, and that one of BoJo's marquee ideas - remove free travel for teenage miscreants and only allow them to earn it back through community service - sounds barking. Which it does.