London 2008

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This will be the main thread for the Mayoral and GLA elections of next May.

Results of the 2004 Mayoral election by ward (1st prefs. only)...



Bigger version plus an important note

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You can tell where Old Southwark and Bermondsey is can't you?

Mostly; but the Cathedrals and Newington wards are in the constituency as well (as was the Rotherhithe part of Livesey). IIRC Hughes only just led Livingstone constituency-wide; the first sign of the decline his machine seems to have hit recently.

Talking of which, isn't it amazing that Livingstone won Cathedrals and lost East Walworth?

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Sure Maps (sadly not at ward level...) of them will be up soon.

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Constituency winners:



Next year, the most vulnerable Labour seat seems likely to be Enfield & Haringey, while the most vulnerable Tory seat is most likely to be Brent & Harrow (unless the LibDems recover back to where they were in 2004/pick an excellent candidate in South West).

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teh Grauniad reports that Livingstone is making a big effort to court the new Polish vote.

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like-a-fishhook news reports that Al has been hanged in Merthyr Tydfil.

Richard Lewis was actually hanged in Cardiff

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Candidates so far:

Labour

Ken Livingstone (no introduction needed)

Tories

Boris Johnson (see Livingstone, K.)
Andrew Boff (ex-counciller (first Hillingdon, then Hackney), frequent candidate for higher office including (but not only) Mayor of Hackney (defeated in the usual landslide), was also the defeated Tory candidate in Hornsey & Wood Green in '92).
Victoria Borwick (counciller in Kensignton & Chelsea)
Warwick Lightfoot (see Borwick, V.)

LibDems

Brian Paddick (ex-deputy assistant police commissioner)
Chamali Fernando (a lawyer)
Fiyaz Mughal (Wood Green counciller)

Greens

Siân Berry (frequent candidate and one of them Principle Speakers. On the left of the Green Party)

Respect

Some random Trot. Of course. I think its Lindsey German again.

English Democrats

Garry Bushell (fascist hack)

BNP

Richard "Hello Sailor" Barnbrook (fascist, leader of the BNP group on Barking & Dagenham LBC, Gay porn star)

Independents

John Bird (founder of "Big Issue")
Nick Ferrari (fascist hack, might not run but probably will)

UKIP and various small parties have yet to select candidates. It would, of course, be a major shock if the Tories don't pick Johnson or if the LibDems don't pick Paddick.

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Candidates so far:

BNP

Richard "Hello Sailor" Barnbrook (fascist, leader of the BNP group on Barking & Dagenham LBC, Gay porn star)

How wonderfully bizarre..

He also directed the pornographic film that he starred in. I believe that he has claimed that it wasn't pornography, but "art".

Ho. Ho. Ho.

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I heard James Whale is being considered as  UKIP candidate, something of a past-it, contrarian, shock-jock hack..

Another fascist-hack-for-mayor? Bad news for Johnson then; second- preferencing isn't compulsory.

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lol

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Boff has quite a strong starting base in the Tories - I would give Boris the edge

Is there actually a chance that Johnson won't be the Tory candidate?

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Is this now Boris's to lose? Or do his numbers stem from growing Conservative support (I'm guessing it does not)

No and no. What's happening is that Livingstone's administration has been hit by some scandals (very) recently, somewhat tarnishing his personal popularity.

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The Greenies have formally endorsed second preferencing Livingstone.

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What are the chances of crazy hair winning?

0%. Richard Barnbrook has no chance of becoming Mayor (thank God).

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LE 2006: Con gain Ealing on a 10% swing

Local issues inflated the size of that swing a great deal. But in general the 2006 results are pretty encouraging for the Tories; a solid showing in suburbia and excellent results in those areas gentrified by financial types. The good news for Labour (and there is some) is that results in most traditionally Labour areas were better than expected (the main exceptions were almost all race-related). The bad news there is that Livingstone isn't actually very good at turning out the vote in such places. An old-fashioned Morrisonian machine hack would probably have a better chance of re-election than him against someone like Johnson (but not against a Norris-type candidate, oddly enough).

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Ward map of Enfield & Haringey last time round; it's the most marginal seat on the GLA (McCartney won by less than two thousand votes. Curiously it was more marginal in 2000 than Brent & Harrow and was an open seat; I suspect that picking an Enfield-based candidate payed off for Labour).

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The results here were... strange... in so many different ways...

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Which party was Webb? RESPECT?

UKIP, the ward he won is in Havering after all!

...and Brown was Residents Association. The two wards he won both voted strongly for Norris in the Mayoral election (Upminster especially).

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London Assembly constituencies are nicely gerrymandered against LDs.  The five yellow seats are in three separate constituencies. 

True in a way (though the Croydon-Sutton pairing makes sense from a communities-of-interest point of view... but on the other hand, Hounslow with Richmond, Kingston etc is a little... ah...) but that's a partial product of the weird decision to have these huge multi-borough constituencies. And the PR element takes some of that away.

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They are in danger of loosing seats, on the Westminster level in swathes of the 'Thames Wedge'; straddling the river from Surbiton through to the City of London where the Tories made strides in 2005 (and some of their easiest targets are there next time round). It will be interesting to note Boris' support there.

Livingstone did weirdly well for a Labour candidate in that area in 2004, running far ahead of the more normal Labour candidates and lists.

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Livingstone also ran miles ahead of the rest of Labour in the trendier parts of this area (Bayswater and so on).

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Singh is none other than Gurcharan Singh. Labour's candidate this year is another Southall machine politician, but not Gurcharan Singh (obviously). Anyway, note the huge margins in Southall and the underpeforming in whiter areas (both Northolt wards, for instance, voted Labour on the list).

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As much as I'd love to see a swing *to* Labour in the GLA (some of Labour's candidates in marginal seats are pretty good compared to those from 2004) I don't think it's especially likely. Interesting to see that Livingstone is apparently no longer running ahead of the rest of Labour. Numbers for both main parties still look too high.

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True. It appears Livingstone's personal vote has taken a hit

Considering that a lot of his personal vote came from the idea that he was somehow representative of "good government" that's not really a surprise. His numbers will probably crash in SW London.

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I would guess a mixture of both; the lolBorisasMayor!!!11 vote probably won't turn out, but Livingstone has been hated in some of the suburbs for decades.

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The BNP are only running in one constituency (City and East) so they won't poll higher than that. On the constituency vote anyway. They are also running on the list and will certainly poll higher than that (high enough to win a seat as well. Urgh).

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Want some maps from last time?

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Arbour managed to lose all three boroughs and still win. Some nasty racial voting in Hounslow, but given the Labour candidate's surname that counts as a given...