London Mayoral Election 2012

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Opik doesn't get it, does he. Can anyone think of a worse case of political tin-ear?

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King would struggle anyway; she doesn't seem to have much in the way of institutional support (yes, she has a lot of MPs onside, but they play no role in selecting candidates at any level). I mean, stranger things have happened, but an upset looks unlikely. Livingstone is also likely to be elected to the NEC.

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It's also entirely possible that both camps would refuse to work with each other; and in order for any transfer system (and especially this sick joke) that's sort-of needed.

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Idris Elba, the actor who played Stringer Bell in The Wire, has endorsed King as has the historian and ubiquitous TV personality Simon Schama.

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Livingstone 68.6
King 31.4

---breakdown by section---

Membership: L 32.97, K 17.03
Affiliates: L 35.634, K 14.366

Ken Livingstone is Labour's candidate for London Mayor.

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It's ages away yet, but we have our first YouGov poll already: Johnson 46, Livingstone 44, Unknown LibDem 4.

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Is Ken still a Labour party member?

Automatic expulsion only happens when a breach of the rules is formally noticed. Livingstone can (and presumably will, if it comes to it) argue that he was merely campaigning for Labour voters to give Rahman their second preferences. Which is dishonest, but he'll probably get away with it.

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Livingstone has released the following statement:

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Is Rahman a leftie?

Aha. What Rahman is depends on who you ask. A neutral description would be that he's a minority-community machine politician with clear religious influences.

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Dust? Where?

Anyways, many things have happened in London since this thread was last posted in. We all know what they are already though.

Why bump the thread now? Because the LibDems have selected their candidate. Results are as follows:

Brian Paddick 1,527
Mike Tuffrey 1,476

First round results were:

Brian Paddick 1,289
Mike Tuffrey 1,232
Brian Haley 316
Lembit Öpik 252

The BBC headline is somewhat misleading ('Brian Paddick beats Lembit Opik in Lib Dem London mayor vote') but includes the following gem:

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Oh wow.

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Is it too late to find some way of replacing Livingstone with Lammy? Not that I have much trust in ComRes or even really in polls of London elections, but if over 10% of 2010 Labour voters are thinking about voting for Johnson... er... no, that is not good.

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The election is in 2012?

I mentioned elsewhere that I'm no good at dates.

And, lo, the problem is solved.

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My thinking is that a brick would be polling stronger right now than Livingstone (because a brick doesn't have his negatives, and all his electoral positives don't matter greatly now that Labour is in opposition) and that as the Hon Member for Tottenham has had only good publicity recently, he might do better than a brick...

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How old must Livingstone be now...I seem to remember hearing his name back in the 70s - he must be almost 80 by now.

He's 66. Like a lot who were on the Hard Left back in the day, he started out young.

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I don't think he's electoral poison, as such. If he were, then he would have been hammered in 2008 and he wasn't. The problem is that he's extremely polarising and (of course) now has the longest personal record of any politician in the country. What's worse is that a small but sizeable section of the normal London Labour base vote is in the anti-Livingstone camp. In 2008 anything he lost from the normal base he made up in other ways (and still lost, but that's not the point). In 2012 that won't be the case, because most such people would be voting Labour anyway.

I don't think that his situation is impossible (as you rightly point out, Johnson is the property of the City and the City is not so very popular these days, and there's also London's mid-term anti-incumbent-government traditions to remember) but he'll find it harder than a fresh face might have done.

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How on earth would a Livingstone defeat caused by Livingstone's personal failings (because if he loses that is why he'll lose) be Miliband's fault? In some polls as much as a fifth of Labour's General Election vote in London intends to vote for Johnson; how is that Miliband's fault? Of course Livingstone isn't dead in the water, especially given this government's travails, but...

Silly old bugger should have mounted his pony and headed off into the sunset when he lost last time. If there's a shortage of credible city-wide candidates for London Labour (and there is) then half the problem is that...

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She would have been a potential disaster for a different set of reasons.

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Johnson and Livingstone unable to behave professionally: official.

In other news, Pope confirms Catholicism, bear admits to arboreal defecation.

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The Standard go for Boris.

Pope confirms accusations of Catholicism.

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WHY did Labour nominate this idiot? WHY?

Because the only other option on the ballot was Oona King. Who is well liked but was never a credible candidate (despite being endorsed by Stringer Bell). So the question you have to ask is slightly different; why was Livingstone the only plausible candidate?

Of course, having said that, the result would have been a lot closer (I suspect) if people had been aware of quite how awful a candidate he would turn out to be this time around. Even if he does somehow win.

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The fact that Portillo changed his public personality so markedly after what happened at that most glorious of declarations is actually quite interesting. Not a typical reaction at all.

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Al, since you know a lot about these things, is the current Mayor of London more or less more than the Leader of the GLC was?

He has more personal power, but the GLC had more power than even the Mayor and GLA combined. The boroughs are stronger - in relation to London Government though (obviously!) not Whitehall - than they were.

Of course, the GLC was less powerful in most respects than the LCC. Every new generation of London Government is weaker than the last.

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How many of the companies polling this election have a record in London-specific elections? Obviously YouGov do and Mori (if they've done one; have they?) but the rest? Suppose I could check myself, but don't really care enough about the race in general, so will just pose the question.