Boris likes cars more than people - fact!

They say politics is about priorities.

So what do you say about the priorities of a city mayor who takes well-developed plans to pedestrianise one of London's most famous but traffic-choked squares, and tears them up?

Unbelievably, Boris Johnson has ditched ex-mayor Ken Livingstone's scheme to bring Parliament Square - the one opposite the House of Commons - into the public realm, blaming concerns about "increased traffic congestion".

Ken's angry, of course. And who can blame him? One of Livingstone's lasting achievements was the transformation of nearby Trafalgar Square from a pigeon shit-soaked roundabout into a magnificent public space. No doubt he came up against the motorist lobby then too... and no doubt he told them to get on their bikes.

It's to Johnson's lasting shame he would rather put traffic first - and for what? So it can inch through central London at 7mph rather than 6?

Bring on 2012.