Boris Johnson told the police to return to the streets of London with 24-hour patrols so that ordinary citizens would have the confidence to challenge thuggish behaviour.

The Conservative MP made crime and antisocial behaviour his top campaign theme when he announced officially his bid to become the party’s candidate to take on Ken Livingstone as Mayor of London yesterday. Rooting out police inefficiency would get officers back on the streets to prevent crimes rather than watching CCTV images of them being committed, he said. Denying that he was calling for vigilantism, he also said that citizens should be encouraged to “change the culture of casual theft and incivility on our streets”.

Mr Johnson also called for designs for a replacement for the double-decker Routemaster bus and for an effective air-conditioning system to cool the London Underground. He said that he would not oppose the congestion charge but said that traffic levels were creeping back towards those before the levy was introduced. Charging £8 a day was in danger of clogging London’s streets with “the same old jams just with posher cars”.

He said that he had a “quasi-religious” passion for cycling and was considering a scheme to loan bikes to schools and introduce a version of the low-cost bike rental scheme being tested in Paris.

For the most part, his speech at County Hall in Central London was more notable for its phrase-making than for its specific policy proposals. Giving free bus passes to the under-16s was a good idea in principle, but he wanted to ensure that “we are not just turning our buses into glorified getaway cars for the minority of thieves and vandals who threaten to wreck the privilege for everybody”.

Joking that his children had the genetic diversity of a UN peacekeeping force, he said that he would promote the unifying role of our common language. “I believe passionately there is no better way to allow everyone to participate as an equal than make sure that everyone who lives in this city has the chance to speak English,” he said.

Mr Livingstone reflected on Mr Johnson’s refusal to take questions: “Boris Johnson, five weeks after announcing his candidacy, has still refused to hold a single press conference at which he can be questioned. I will, of course, deal with other detailed policies when he announces them.”

The hustings for the Tories’ primary election to choose a candidate begin next Monday and close on Wednesday, September 26. Mr Johnson will be up against a shortlist of other candidates, inlcuding Warwick Lightfoot and Victoria Borwick. The winner will be announced the following day. The mayoral election itself will be held on Thursday, May 1, next year.

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