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Sri Carmichael and Mira Bar-Hillel:

The clash between the Labour government, which opposes high rise, and the Mayor, who has become a convert to new building projects, has ended in a planning stalemate as the recession bites. At least 21 London property schemes could be scrapped or dramatically shrunk.

There follows a telling round-up of the capital's stunted tower projects, each a tale of crunched credit or obstruction of Boris by Blears. What interests me - because I can't yet detect one - is the guiding principle behind the Mayor's policy on towers. He's said yes to them more often than his critics would like, yet he's just said no to Rafael Vinoly's intended 300 metre-tall glass chimney on the site of Battersea power station. Building Design and Construction reports:

After opposition from local residents and Johnson, REO, which is 67% owned by the Treasury, has decided to replace the dome with individual canopies covering the buildings and abandon plans for the tower, which would have been one of the tallest structures in London.

The Mayor's office emphasises that Boris isn't against tall buildings where they are "appropriate". But what does "appropriate" mean?

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Amanda Baillieu:

Just as green belt land is often ordinary farmland with no special claim to preservation, we need to ask why we are protecting particular views that — with some notable exceptions — are no more special than others. Of course no one can not enjoy seeing St Paul's from the top of Primrose Hill or Richmond Park, but why is this more special than the view from the terrace of the National Theatre?

Now read on.

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At Building, Michael Willoughby:

Mayor Boris Johnson attacked his workplace, the 2002 Greater London Authority (GLA) building, as one of the worst in London shortly before handing its developer a planning award.

Love it. Now read on.

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Simon Jenkins in the Standard:

Boris Johnson swore that he would rescind Livingstone's towers. He told all comers that he would "stop the madness". Yet no sooner was he in "the testicle" than he craved a phallus. The developer lobbyists got to him and undermined his self-confidence.

The Mayor, of course, doesn't see it quite that way. Whatever, Jenkins might reflect that several boroughs have lobbied for towers too and that he, like Boris, spoke during the election campaign in favour of boroughs being free from bossy mayors. You can't have it both ways.

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An Evening Standard leader:

Boris Johnson's policy of restricting approval for tall buildings in London to limited areas was once a fundamental element of his approach to planning. But his approval for tall buildings in Wandsworth and Ealing, areas without existing clusters of blocks, suggests an approach more like the ad-hoc policy of his predecessor, Ken Livingstone, who took a notoriously lax attitude to skyscrapers. Now Mr Johnson has a chance to show whether his planning policy for our skyline has rigour or consistency.

A new proposal for The Spires, three enormous tower blocks right by City Hall, is being submitted for approval. It would be hard to justify. The tallest of the three would reportedly offer views of the English Channel; together they would interfere with the Mayor's own views. In a downturn, there is little economic rationale for projects like this; aesthetically, there is even less. Mr Johnson should say no.

Wow, Veronica really has left the building hasn't she? No wonder Boris is putting on a Russian festival, of which he says:

Russian Londoners are a thriving community who have made a significant contribution to the capital both economically and culturally. I encourage everyone to come and enjoy this fantastic festival offering.

Are you listening, Alexander?

More on The Spires and other Irvine Sellar proposals for central London here.

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A better Olympic legacy for east London would be a return to its great manufacturing tradition

At York station yesterday, the Prince of Wales unveiled the nameplate of Tornado, the first mainline railway locomotive to be built in Britain for many years. Tornado just happens to be a steam engine, a slightly modernised recreation of a London and North Eastern Railway express passenger "Pacific" of 60 years ago.

Created over 18 years and at a cost of £3m by the A1 Locomotive Trust in Darlington, Tornado has captured the hearts of railway enthusiasts worldwide. Network Rail was astonished by the sheer scale and enthusiasm of the camera-toting crowds who turned up - all ages, classes, colours, genders and creeds - to witness the muscular apple green locomotive's first arrival at King's Cross. News of Tornado's exploits has been reported around the world, including China, where most heavy industry seems to be rooted today.

When Prince Charles officially named Tornado, it was against the backdrop of the sweeping curve of York's 1870s train shed, an adventure in cast-iron Victorian gothic designed by Thomas Prosser and William Peachey, and a properly Olympian setting for an Olympian locomotive. Within sight of those on the platform was York Minster, a commanding example of English craft, architecture and resolve. Overhead, a flight of RAF Tornado jets roared past. For a few precious minutes, York harboured a stirring gathering of British design and engineering excellence, a legacy to savour.

Turn now to the scene enacted a fortnight ago at Stratford, east London, where the mayor of London, the secretary of state for communities and the Olympics minister unveiled "legacy plans" for the 2012 Olympics. Now that prized private funding has vanished, the legacy will be paid for by the public purse. It had better be good. As good as York Minster, York station, a fly past of the RAF's finest and Tornado, the green engine stealing hearts away.

There will be lots and lots of homes, zero-carbon, of course, based on German and Swedish, rather than English, precedent and connected by footpaths and cycleways around a determinedly uninspired park. There will be a National Skills Academy for sports and leisure industries, rock concerts, an "Olympic university" and other things. What things? Well, you know, small, environmentally friendly things. Anyway, it will all be "world class", or about as enticing as a bowl of cold porridge.

I wonder if it has occurred to these London Olympians, so different in stature and ambition from York's, that the seeds of a truly worthwhile legacy are in the very soil of Stratford and along the banks of the river Lea that flows lugubriously through it. The site chosen for the 2012 Austerity Olympics was, until 1991, home to the Stratford railway works, founded in 1847. It held the record for high-speed manufacturing; in 1891, one of James Holden's 0-6-0 freight locomotives was built here in nine hours and 47 minutes. It went straight into service and ran more than 1.2 million miles over the following 44 years.

Stratford and the Lea Valley were, in fact, the cradle of a second industrial revolution, with Britain at its forefront. Up the river Lea, companies like Avro and Hawker Siddeley got Britain into the air. Here, in 1904, Ambrose Fleming invented the diode valve, a key to the development of radio, television, computers and the internet. The first radio valves were made here, and the first television tubes emerged 20 years later. Aero-engines and custom-designed London buses were made in Walthamstow. Lee-Enfield rifles were made here, too.

If we were serious about creating a legacy from the Olympics, we would do everything we could to establish the latest forms of manufacturing here. We might, of course, even choose to build the next generation of high-speed trains here. Such industry would mean young people learning valuable and enjoyable skills, a future workforce with responsible and uplifting jobs, and a solid economic base on which to build a post-financial services dependent economy.

Sadly, British politicians tend to have little care for manufacturing, railways and British jobs. Yesterday the Prince of Wales evoked the spirit of a manufacturing and design legacy we could have - in ultra-modern form - but which we will reject as a matter of course in favour of unimaginative, posturing "urban regeneration", which will see the East End of London little better off than before - collectively stacking the shelves of Hadean supermarkets rather than building the modern equivalent of the Olympian Tornado.

• Jonathan Glancey is the Guardian's architecture critic jonathan.glancey@guardian.co.uk

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Sir Simon Milton, interviewed in Building:

Boris' legacy will be the creation of a distinctive architecture for London. A kind of architectural vernacular, especially for housing, that is definitely London.

For Milton on the "affordable" target, the mayor's use of strategic powers and charging developers for Crossrail, read on.

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Well, what do you know? Regen Daily reports:

Boris Johnson has agreed to back Rafael Vinoly's design for a 38-storey tower, subject to a series of minor revisions. Dubbed the Walkie Talkie, the Land Securities development is planned for 20 Fenchurch Street in the City of London.

With some of Boris's other green lights to tall buildings, you can see how he might deny breaking his pledge to restrict their proliferation (I'd link to the relevant bit of his manifesto, but still no-one has revived his campaign site. Come on, Alex or whoever in Team Boris is suppose to be on the case. This is a democracy, you know).

Most have been out of the centre of town, and blocking the Doon Street tower would have meant a lot of grief. But the Walkie-Talkie was mocked by the very traditionalists whose tastes he aligned himself with. I don't get this one at all. Will seek clarification.

Update, 12.46: I didn't need to seek clarification. It arrived all by itself, in the form of a phone call from one of the mayor's press officers. The thing is, he explained, Boris was in no position to stop the Walkie-Talkie being built because the basic plan had already been given the go-ahead under Ken Livingstone. All Boris has given his blessing to are some small changes that the developers wanted to make and, in any case, the building would not have been at odds with his definition of an appropriate location for a new tall building.

So there we have it. I am grateful and I have a great deal to learn. That said, if Boris still wants to be seen as a maoyr who stops tall buildings appearing all over the place, he must be wishing a few more people would come up with ideas for them that a) he doesn't approve of, and b) he's in a position to say no to. Just a thought.

Update, 16.24: And there's another angle.

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