Debate, at last!
You can find the first televised debate between the two candidates who stand a chance of winning as well as Brian Paddick here.
Paddick did a good job of making the main issue crime with his speech while Ken batted aside the question over terms as if it were a fly. He is not “Beholden to anyone” he says, which is of course entirely true and perhaps not the case with Johnson. It is easy to forget just what a skilled politician he is, especially when his adversary gave a speech that fell into the notorious “Too much, too fast” folly that debaters are frequently culpable of. He also pronounced “Londoners really care about” as “Rarely care about”, which given that he followed with a complaint about the much-demonised but entirely legitimate Hugo Chavez seemed unintentionally apt. A skilled listener can hear, absorb and appreciate all of the material at even the swiftest of rates but the average ear simply ceases to process. His response to Paxman was a perfect contrast to Ken: overly long and blustery.
His overly optimistic hopes for engagement with the unions were a mixture of pure pathos and absolute hilarity.
I shall gives the whole thing a proper viewing and type up my thoughts once I have.
It seems that Ali beat me to it and considers the decision “The two best between ten evils”. My own view differs substantially:
Boris’ failure was obvious and quite a joy to behold. He not only demonstrated himself to be overwhelmed in the position he had placed himself but also came across as boorish and loud. The interruptions from him began early and remained a constant natter.
It seems that he has been told a few things from people who thought they knew what they were talking about but unfortunately this is far from enough to make him well informed. The cannabis claims he made have been demonstrated by a comprehensive study to be lies intended to make draconian policies more tolerable to hypocrite boomers. We smoked the stuff back then but it’s just not the same. So runs the meme, but reality is of another form. There are more pungent strains on offer but the norm is as potent as it ever was, not more so.
His comments on crime also demonstrated his position as someone exposed to the talking points of the hard right. Stamping out minor crimes was the way you stamp out minor ones, apparently. This is the view concocted by middle aged right wingers and it shows. For instance if you attempt to end rape by ending graffiti you will fail. Graffiti is an element of youth culture as well as hip-hop culture. Performing it means that you are most likely influenced by that culture in your behaviour and use walls and spray-cans as your medium. It is not an early warning sign that you are about to become a rapist.
Brian Paddick did not get to say a lot but to be honest I don’t really mind. He should not have really been there, given that all of the other candidates who stood no chance of winning were excluded. He did raise a few valuable points but did not pursue the only tactic worthwhile in his position: opting for a candidate he wished to destroy and doing all that he could to make it so. Instead he distributed his attacks pretty fairly and although they were fierce he probably did less than Paxman.
Speaking of which, the host was his usual self, rendered cynical and fierce by decades of dealing with slippery political types. He pounding Boris heavily and pleasingly over his crude evasions from the question of a figure. This continued for quite some time and although not epic to the scale of “Did you threaten to overwhelm him?” proportions it was still substantial and displayed his subject’s ignorance perfectly.
A rather odd quirk of the set-up was that Paxman was facing a camera while flanked along the right by the candidates. This meant that he had to turn around to face them but he did so with ease, occasionally advancing when one was being especially recalcitrant in a menacing fashion.
Livingstone meanwhile seemed to have began a shaky start but, for once, ignorance actually seemed beneficial. It seems that his approach towards fund-raising was…Not to. He, perhaps rather inaccurately, seems to have assumed that they would take care of themselves and has little knowledge as to who is giving him funds. This is advantageous in that he is effectively incorruptible as he has no clue as to who is attempting to be his paymaster. Boris, meanwhile, met up with his old chums and had an upper class whip-around. A pity that that went unmentioned.
To my surprise I found Ken most convincing. Ali claims he dodged questions but none spring to mind so perhaps he needs to elaborate. He painted the overly rosy painting of London that a man in his position needs to but to be frank I love the city and I don’t consider it a “City in Distress” or any other such alarmist nonsense.
Ken’s response to the worrying trend of teenage killings is also notable for him in it approvingly quoting Tony Blair. Not a sight you see every day.
Overall I found him far more charming and winning than I had anticipated. Of the three he was unquestionably the one who seemed most comfortable {although perhaps Brian Paddicks dependence upon uncalled for rage discounts him} as well as the one who seemed most fit for office. He was no fire-brand and seemed largely calm and in his element. His grasp of the facts was a stark contrast to that of Boris.
