London Mayoral Race Hots Up
With just over a month until the London mayoral elections, I am caught in a bit of a quandary. I have the opportunity to vote for the first time, but I do not know who to vote for. I don’t want to waste it.
Current estimations show Boris Johnson ahead by 10 points in the first preference vote, and at 54/46 against Ken Livingstone after the second preference votes are counted. It should be noted that I resent being asked to vote for someone who I do not wish to win, but in a democracy one must accept the electoral system dictated from above. With two votes to cast, I do not know who to cast them for. My logic (so far) amounts to the following:
- Ken Livingstone is nasty and authoritarian and ought to be kicked out of office. His gross manipulation of the office of Mayor (mainly though using taxpayers’ money for shameless self-publicity) is simply wrong. And I cannot get over his Routemaster betrayal and subsequent bendy-bus nonsense. The only decent response is via the ballot box.
- Boris Johnson is perfect for London in so many ways. He talks like a commuter, rants like a cab driver, and puts his foot in it like his heel tastes of strawberries. He would shrink the office, which can only be a good thing. When he says something outlandishly offensive, he will apologise instead of engaging in a costly legal and PR battle over whether telling a Jewish reporter that his behaviour was tantamount to that of a concentration camp guard was a breach of office or not. On the other hand, he is a Tory and I am not.
- The media is responding to polls showing just how much of a two-horse-race this is, based on first-name personalities instead of politics. Brian Paddick is a nonentity within the LibDems, having just joined them, so he is going to struggle to win any support. Reading his manifesto pledges, it appears that he has less grasp of London than my humble self: most of the proposals are either in place already, in the pipeline, or completely nonsensical. Even if I agreed with the proposals, the simple fact that he hasn’t done his homework leads me to question his suitability for the job. Plus, photos of him pompously wearing his police uniform are rather counter-productive in making his crime policy look good: if he was such a good policeman why does he need to go into politics because crime is so bad?
- The minor parties and fringe nutter groups are also in plentiful supply. Alan Craig, of the Christian Choice, is clearly a little divorced from reality. He seems to think that protecting marriage is part of the Mayor of London’s brief, and argues that we should oppose the apocalyptically-named “Olympics Mega Mosque” because he predicts that it will foster extremism. As far as I see it, if London gets lumbered with this crackpot reactionary who nestles somewhere to the right of UKIP apparently speaking on behalf of Christians, don’t Muslims deserve a mosque in return? After all, his “aggressive stop and search” policy will probably inconvenience them more than most. Come to think of it, Alan, just build the mosque and then station your gun-toting pseudo-military police force at the doors.
- Gerard Batten is the UKIP candidate. He is every bit as loathsome as your average UKIP candidate, but a good deal less intelligent. He doesn’t seem to understand that helicopters are, by their nature, airborne, and that children’s toys are not the best method of tackling teenage yobs: “Get the Police back on the streets – I don’t care if they drive cars, fly helicopters, or go on pogo sticks, but get them back on the streets fighting crime.” Even giving him the benefit of the doubt on this attempt at humour, the man wants to elect police chiefs because Sir Ian Blair has “politicised” his position. With joined-up thinking like that, it’s a wonder he is only a humble MEP (a position which, it should be noted, he gained from a closed list system).
- Lindsey German shows just how weird and radical and nasty the Respect Party is.
- Richard Barnbrook of the BNP aptly demonstrates just how illogical one can get when so blinded by prejudice and hatred.
- Matt O’Connor is a bit of a red-herring in the race. He was involved in Fathers for Justice, but is now focusing on non-racist rightist principles. The last election in which the English Democrats stood saw them gain fewer votes than the Monster Raving Looney Party. I know who I would prefer in office.
- Sian Berry’s Green gang have a sensible little set of policies, but they are decidedly narrow-minded. I want a mayor who wants to run London, not just its airspace and green fields.
- Winston McKenzie is standing as an independent (with a £10,000 deposit to lose) and his manifesto is a self-penned rap. I’ll confidently place £10,000 on him never seeing that deposit again.
Considering that I am principled kind of guy, who should get my first and second preference votes?
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Posted in: Extremism, Fascism, Fear and Loathing, LibDems, London Mayor, Madness, Tories
Posted in: Extremism, Fascism, Fear and Loathing, LibDems, London Mayor, Madness, Tories
Didn’t know you hated Ken that much Ali. Or supported Boris, relatively. Surprising. And didn’t know there were so many other candidates. Guess there’s still much to learn. I can’t help you on whom to vote for I’m afraid, I’m puzzled myself as of yet. I’m considering 1) Ken 2) Boris 3) Spoiled ballot 4) Not bothering to send in the piece of paper, not necessarily in that order.
And what about this Jake Willis guy from LondonelectsYOU! Sound?
I don’t know what happened to the LondonElectsYOU! bloke (nominations have closed, and he’s not on the list). Anyhow, I thought you were more of a UKIP kinda guy.
Mmm I probably am to the right of the Conservative Party but I can lobby for a “lurch to the right” without going outside of the party. We do have The Cornerstone Group and Better Off Out, etc. The fact that I’ve never heard of a Gerard Batten until yesterday doesn’t help him either. I’m totally okay with having a Conservative majority in Parliament and a Labour London Mayor to be quite honest. I don’t give much credit to that position anyway, and I think I don’t despise Ken as much as you do. Anyway, to be continued on MSN, we don’t need to be airing any more of my dirty fascist laundry on the internet…
You’ve been rather unfair to Berry, Ali. She (and the Greens) do have policies other than those directly relating to the environment. That they don’t get covered much in the media is more, I suspect, an issue of the public perception of the Greens as a single issue group than its reality.
Actually, I can probably get a post out of that…
And we’ve discussed our differences on Ken elsewhere on the site…
“# Ken Livingstone is nasty and authoritarian and ought to be kicked out of office.”
Yuh-huh. Authoritarian. Clearly.
That’s why we’ve been closed down and you’re in jail for standing against him. That’s why the Evening Standard is being allowed to act as a mindless mouthpiece for the Tories. *rolls eyes*
“His gross manipulation of the office of Mayor (mainly though using taxpayers’ money for shameless self-publicity) is simply wrong.”
Eh. Thus far not a single person running has said that they will close down the Londoner. When they do I’ll start to care about this one, as far as I can tell though it’s not something up for change this time around.
“And I cannot get over his Routemaster betrayal and subsequent bendy-bus nonsense.”
Yeah, because we clearly needed to retain something that couldn’t be used properly by somebody in a wheelchair.
“The only decent response is via the ballot box.”
Oh for fuck’s sake.
But for Ken it would cost me six quid to get to get to school every day. Three buses, there and back. You honestly imagine that Boris would have brought in anything that radical? You honestly think it’s safe that it’ll be retained?
But for Ken the congestion charge would never have occurred and the cloggage of central London with auto-traffic would be total. The amount of good he has done is vast. Has he shown himself to be a total odious twat? Certainly. But that doesn’t matter. He’s not meant to seem lovely, he’s meant to get the job done. And he has.
“# Boris Johnson is perfect for London in so many ways.”
Yeah, nothing like a man who calls black children “Smiling face piccanninies” to run a city that is a third non-white! Absolutely flawless candidate there.
“He talks like a commuter, rants like a cab driver, and puts his foot in it like his heel tastes of strawberries.”
Oh, a bumbling lovable oaf. How wonderful.
As a person, unquestionably. As a man wielding power, GTFO.
“He would shrink the office, which can only be a good thing.”
He’s actually more likely to lose the keys and say “Cripes”.
The man is incapable of organising his own schedule, let alone a capital city inhabited by millions.
“When he says something outlandishly offensive, he will apologise instead of engaging in a costly legal and PR battle over whether telling a Jewish reporter that his behaviour was tantamount to that of a concentration camp guard was a breach of office or not.”
He has not yet apologised for the above. And he REALLY fucking should.
“On the other hand, he is a Tory and I am not.”
That’s easily the daftest thing I’ve read this week. Easily.
In a position such as Mayor the last thing of any significance is your party affiliation. It is effectively entirely a matter of personality. There is no whip and if there is a move towards exerting influence you can do perfectly well outside the party system entirely, as Livingstone demonstrated.
As it happens I’m not part of the Labour Party. I have major issues with large tracts of their policy. But you don’t pick this sort of thing on partisan lines but instead around which individual is most likely to create and maintain this city you please.
Then you use your other vote to opt for the one that stands a chance of winning {Boris or Ken, be honest} that you like most. It really could not be simpler, it does not present the sort of “Head or Heart” dilemma that FPTP does and what party a person is is a total fucking irrelevance.
And if you think a limited-minded former rich boy who can’t tell Chavez from Castro and imagines that he is capable of overwhelming Parliamentary Sovereignty is worthy of the latter then I am at least glad that we’ll get a good look at what a shoddy job Tories do in power, although a little upset that the demonstration will come in the form of suffering from our fine city.
/rant
I was waiting for that. Now I can focus on the post about the Greens, rather than feeling the need to return and defend Ken…
I shall attempt to respond to Mr Vamp’s friendly - “Oh for fuck’s sake” - dissection of my thoughts.
Er, actually, Johnson has promised to use the money to plant trees. Tacky, but true nonetheless.
I agree, Ken was necessary in 2000. I do not believe that Johnson would have brought in free travel. I do believe it is here to stay.
Keen not to waste too much time writing about why I do not support a Conservative policy package, I declined to bother. I guessed that a throwaway comment should suffice. Sorry. It was not because he happens to be a Tory but because membership of the Conservative Party lends onself to policies that I cannot abide.
i think you misunderstand Alan Craig (but at least you’ve read his stuff!).
1) Ken does all kinds of things outside the Mayors remit, marriage and family are more relevant than half the stuff he does. Working hard to encourage couples to say together will benefit all areas of society. He knows he won’t actually be mayor but wants to get on the assembly and raising family issues is important.
2) Opposing the Abbey Mills mosque IS a valid position. He is not the only one concerned here are a list of key musilm leaders:
* Irfan al-Alawi, UK & European Director of the Centre for Islamic Pluralism
* Asghar and Zulfiqar Bukhari of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee
* Dr Taj Hargey, Chairman of the Muslim Education Centre at Oxford
* Haras Rafiq of the Sufi Muslim Council
* Ed Husain, ex-Newham Hizb-ut-Tahrir and now Muslim moderate and media commentator
The issue tablighi Jamaat and it’s not right wing to be concerned about them
3) I think you misunderstand the stop and search policy, They are calling not for a relaxation of paper work to search people, (in a climate of the other parties wanting to relax the regulation). They want it properly monitored. Some of the party have been active campaigners against the uncontrolled stop and search the Tory’s want. If you are concerned by this policy contact them and I’m sure they can give a fuller explanation on their position and sure you will be satisfied that they are not right of UKIP. I’m a libertarian and I convinced.
I shall attempt to respond to Mr Vamp’s friendly - “Oh for fuck’s sake” - dissection of my thoughts.
Brave man.
Er, actually, Johnson has promised to use the money to plant trees. Tacky, but true nonetheless.
My error. We’ll see. Or not.
I agree, Ken was necessary in 2000. I do not believe that Johnson would have brought in free travel. I do believe it is here to stay.
Boris’ own “Greater Londoner” rag has pronounced that he intends to protect “Freedom Passes for pensioners”. That leaves, shall we say, something of a conspicuous absence. Does it not?
Keen not to waste too much time writing about why I do not support a Conservative policy package, I declined to bother. I guessed that a throwaway comment should suffice. Sorry. It was not because he happens to be a Tory but because membership of the Conservative Party lends onself to policies that I cannot abide.
To be fair your article was the first thing I had read this week.
Thank you for your comment Johnny.
I am not entirely sold on the Mega-Mosque myself, as I consider any form of separatism inherntly divisive and in opposition to the basic fact of our shared humanity. It is also for that reason that I oppose the notion of a “Christian Peoples Alliance” since a rational argument is a rational argument and if it is fit for policy it is fit for arguing to all sections of society.
For instance your suggestion on stop & search controls truly does sound far more tolerable than the Tory suggestions. But although I suspect that Ali may remain wary {as do I, to an extent} he is a Christian, while I am not. That I feel uncomfortable raising his creed at all perhaps demonstrates the difficulties inherently raised when involving identity and faith in politics.
One last issue to raise with Vamp:
Johnson’s policy of making yobbish kids earn their free travel back if they lose it rather hinges on the idea that they have free travel to begin with - the “Payback London” scheme.
At risk of sounding like a Boris Johnson sympathiser, I’ll call it a day.
Ali,
It would be perfectly possible for him to scrap the 16-18 passes and retain those for younger children. What I find curious is that he would not announce that he has no plans while very noisily assuring us that the pensioner’s passes are safe. If he has electoral gain to make from such policies they surely would be declared but I can very much imagine him not campaigning on a platform of destroying the 16+. The Livingstonian response would really write itself.
Ali,
As a result of EU disability legislation, the Routemasters were completely unfeasible. London was not allowed to keep them on our streets. As I’m sure you know, Boris’ talk of “bringing back the Routemaster”, involves a kitsch re-imagining of the bus - essentially a £100m+ new design of a double decker bus with a (hugely uneconomical) conducter. And he moans about Ken wasting money.
Ultimately, Routemasters were a great part of our city’s past but the design is 50 years out-of-date. I think most people accept they’re best left to heritage trails.
Ben, the Routemasters were free to run until 2016. Obviously, they should have been run alongside accessible buses. But there is no bus design in the world that works as well as the Routemaster, and you don’t trash them having promised that “only some kind of ghastly dehumanised monster” would do so.
Well not if you’re disabled, have a buggy, care about tackling global warming or think paying two people to run one bus is a waste of money.
If you are disabled or have a buggy, you will be pleased to see buses running on time (Routemasters naturally manage this more easily) so that you can actually fit on a low-floor bus when it arrives. All too often, people are crammed onto low-floor buses in such a way as to make it impossible for all but the most fierce parents to shove their buggies on board.
The refurbished Routemasters (which Livingstone boasted about at the time) met higher standards than many news buses ordered in recent years.
Paying two people to run a bus is infinitely preferable to having teams of revenue inspectors and police officers halt a full bendy bus (120ish people) at a stop for several minutes while everyone’s pass is checked and fare dodgers are given fines. Inevitable traffic jams ensue. Disabled passengers wanting other routes are forced to walk 18 metres down the road to step onto another bus that cannot pull into the stop because the bendy bus is in the way, getting on the bus at road-level, not at the raised pavement being hogged by the bendy bus.
As for the waste of money suggestion, consider the importance now put on “visible” police - having a conductor ride with passengers allows them to prevent crime and disorder far more than on conventional buses. I look forward to the day when a conductor will come along to check my Oyster card and tell some delinquent youth to shut their dreadful music up and stop smoking.
Surely there’s no reason why people should be any more “crammed on” in a Routemaster than a conventional double decker? They both have similar capacities. However, on a modern bus the floor can be lowered and there are places for buggies and wheelchairs. In my experience, Londoners are usually very cooperative at getting up to allow them a place. On the Routemasters, the bulk of the bus was too narrow to place a wheelchair or buggy and it would get in the way at the back and could even run the risk of falling off.
To my knowledge, the refurbishments were simply about new engines and seats. They did not address the problems of disabled access or safety.
In an age where you can buy tickets at the bus stop and practically everyone has an Oyster card, it makes no sense to employ a conducter. The hop-on, hop-off nature of the Routemasters was one of the primary justifications for keeping the buses but I really can’t see how it’s much faster than a bus with Oyster capability. And I was frequently aware of people not paying the fares on the Routemasters or being left. The bendy buses were highly successful in continental Europe and were only trialled in London. Livingstone has said no more will be ordered.
I’ve never been on a bendy bus which was halted by police officers. I don’t get the impression it’s a very regular occurance. In fact, from your experience of London buses, we could as well be living in different cities. I have never seen anyone smoke on a London bus and the only mugging I’ve ever seen on a bus was on the top deck of a Routemaster. I really can’t see the virtue of employing someone who doesn’t have the power, authority or even the license that a police officer has to tell teenagers off. A glorified PCSO seems to be your only role for the conductor.
“Londoners are usually very cooperative at getting up to allow them a place.”
I AM NOT SO SURE; MAYBE YOUR IN LONDONDERRY.
Actually, I believe he’s in Wandsworth….