Boris Towers

This is the 63 storey - let me repeat that: SIXTY THREE STOREY - skyscraper that Boris Johnson has just insisted be built in Docklands.

In case you need reminding, Boris Johnson is the man who won thousands of votes in the London elections barely a year ago by promising to reverse fomer mayor Ken Livingstone's plans for skyscrapers.

Yet the moment he was elected the Tory changed his tune. He gave the green light to a skyscraper in Ealing Broadway. It was the Labour Government that had to halt them by calling a public inquiry.

Wandsworth Conservatives then approved their twin 42-storey towers on the Ram Brewery site. Boris Johnson failed to block those plans. It was the Labour Government that had to halt them by calling a public inquiry.

Boris Johnson has caved-in over skyscraper after skyscraper: he had no objections in principle to the 40+ storeys at Clapham Junction.

And now he's given the go-ahead - which the local Labour council refused - for this 63 storey tower in Docklands.

Now I should be clear. The centre of London, and an area like Docklands, is precisely the area where high-rise buildings should be built. I am not against all skyscrapers anywhere.

I do have concerns about the desirability of buildings of such heights.

But this isn't about my views on architecture: it's about one of the most spectacularly cynical U-turns by any politician ever seen - it is just 15 months since Boris Johnson promised us that he'd oppose such plans, and in just 15 months he has broken that promise over and over again.