Don't repeat 'mistakes' of Boris, Cameron told

David Cameron was warned today not to repeat the "mistakes" of Boris Johnson's first year as mayor.

Leading pollster Stephan Shakespeare used the influential ConservativeHome.com website to declare that Mr Johnson had "no notable achievement, no sense that anything important will change, no grip".

In a withering assessment, YouGov founder Mr Shakespeare insisted the Mayor had been an improvement on his predecessor but had failed to take tough decisions on issues such as transport and slashing City Hall wages.

Mr Shakespeare said the next Tory government could not afford to waste time in its first year in office and warned that Mr Cameron should not copy the Mayor's example of being "a good communicator" with few concrete changes under his belt.

"Can Cameron promise us that he will not be like Boris? Because if Cameron ends up being just a higher-up version of a do-little mayor, then for millions of people it won't be worth the effort of voting," he wrote. The pollster said Mr Johnson had "provided some welcome amusement" and had wasted a little less than his predecessor.

"But that's it. There's no notable achievement, no sense that anything important will change, no grip. Real problems are not solved - in fact, there's not even a discernable attempt to solve them."

He added that Mr Johnson had done little to tackle the 100 Transport for London employees who reportedly earn more than £100,000 a year. The traffic in the capital also felt worse, largely because of un-coordinated road works.

But Mr Johnson's spokesman hit back. "Boris Johnson has been a breath of fresh air for London and for British politics," he said. "He's halted the rise in taxes and the cavalier attitude of his predecessor to taxpayers' money, giving the city a sense of optimism in difficult times.

"He's also put in place a series of measures that will shortly bear fruit, from a revolution in cycling to changing the structure of the Metropolitan Police and making £2 billion of transport savings at TfL."