My latest for Comment is Free begins like this:
Somewhere along the road between the start of his campaign to become London mayor and his post-victory visit to Whiteleys shopping arcade, a backseat voice whispered in Boris Johnson's ear. The future mayor had been hinting to voters on the affluent west side of town that the extension of the congestion charge zone, imposed on their territory against their wishes by Ken Livingstone last year, would be removed if he secured victory. But by the time he was pressing the flesh in Queensway his stance had become more flexible. The promised consultation on the future of the scheme would now offer more than a straightforward choice between retention and abolition. There would be a third way too; a middle way; an "option three".
It continues here.
