Greater London Assembly and Mayor elections

Zac Goldsmith won for the Tories. It seems the full slate is coming together. One of the key things you'll see reading about candidates is the word "lobby". That's because the Mayor lacks authority to raise money or legislate. His or her main power, it seems, is to annoy the Chancellor into giving London cash.

Conservative Party - Zac Goldsmith is perhaps the epitome of the phrase economic and social liberal. A soft eurosceptic (you may recall his father's history with the EU) of aristocratic background (he is literally married to a Rothschild), Goldsmith largely follows the London consensus (diverse, socially liberal, high investment in public transport, business friendly). As former editor for the Ecologist he may dare himself to go further than BoJo (who was constrained by his national ambitions - being seen as anti-private motor would not go down well in the grassroots) on green issues: more investment in bikes, urban pedestrianisation, opposing new airports or expansions of existing ones, expand or raise the congestion charge, ultra low emissions zones, a step up on the electrification of buses etc. On the other one hand, he will probably clamp down on strike action - probably a very populist move, as the RMT Union is fairly controversial in the capital. In terms of housing, he seems to advocate for limited rent control coupled with an expansion of high-rises - 50,000 new homes, he promises.

Labour - Sadiq Khan, the surprise winner of the Labour nomination, is a soft-left Muslim who grew up in a council estate as the son of a Pakistani immigrant. Very different background as you might see. His main issue is affordability - a "living rent", 50% of new houses being "affordable" and a freeze of ticket fares on buses and the Underground. He has had to be bullish on the environment to outmanoeuvre Goldsmith, opposing the expansion of Heathrow, wanting a million trees to be planted, expanding ultra low emission zones to the whole of Zones 1, 2 and along primary commuter roots, pedestrianising Oxford Street. One issue he'll have, (I don't think the Muslim issue will come up - London's most relevant paper the Standard can be nasty, but not in that way) will possibly be unions. Like in a lot of cities, technology like Uber and driverless vehicles are slowly encroaching on well-paid jobs that threaten to drive more working-class people out of decent incomes.

The joke parties. (London's surreally bad voting system means junk, so they don't matter, but the major parties do want to harvest second preferences)

Lib Dems - Caroline Pidgeon, the leader of the Ld group in the London Assembly, was elected by default because nobody else made the ballot. The Lib Dems must be alarmed that the Tories basically nominated one of them, but they will soldier on; probably in hope of an extra seat in the Assembly or at least avoid being third. I don't know how many Pidgeon/pigeon puns will be made throughout the campaign, but it'll probably be too much.

Greens - Sian Berry, the previous nominee. Longtime activist against urban 4x4's, Lockheed Martin, inefficient boilers etc. She attributes her political awakening to when she quit her job in Big Pharma in disgust. Apparently leader Natalie Bennet was musing about standing, only to have her procrastination interrupted by spiritual leader Caroline Lucas endorsing Berry?

UKIP - who cares. Ukip's main ambition is to get two seats. They may get a decent protest vote - neither majors are great matches for what kippers exist in London (despite goldsmith's father). They will hope to avoid the embarrassment of last time, when they forgot to put their name on their ballot. (Incidentally as I said earlier, UKIP, like greens, snubbed a higher-up figure by endorsing a relative nobody.

The George Galloway Fun Party - Galloway himself. Promising to reform the Metropolitain Police, crack down on white-collar crime (something he wouldn't have authority to do) and seize vacant properties for affordable housing, he basically wants to run to have more chance to look like a dick on a world stage. Will get decent results in Bengali areas, probably.

The BNP aren't running, but Britain First member and former BNP stooge Paul Golding will run. The very curious "multicultural far-right" (?!!!!) party the National Liberals will be running an uber driver. A Lindsey Garret is running for some generic radical centre group called Something New (ugh). There are a few independents, including someone who wants to ban all private cars, the polish prince who wanted to fight Farage and Siobhan Benita, a former civil servant. Sandi Toskvig said she might run but I presume she was joking.

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