This one should be obvious, shouldn’t it?

But I don’t think so. Not Gordon Brown, who is in a distinctly lamed position after the thorough mauling. Not, as Ali suggests, Tessa Jowls, who somehow managed to fail to secure re-election for a controversial but popular mayor facing a clownish opponent who did not even live in the city. Not even Ken himself, who has no further aspirations or hopes of a political life save perhaps in the instance of a Boris-triggered implosion beyond the salvation offered by the super-heroics of even Brian Paddick.

No, I would suggest that the true loser of this election was none other than Nick Cohen.

He took the anti-Livingstone line in this election, hardly much of a surprise to anyone who read his book “What’s Left” where he wrote of how Ken spoke at the funeral of the leader of the Worker’s Revolutionary Party. Cohen managed to defend the unusual position of being an open leftist attacking the most powerful progressive in the country when a blundering reactionary stood to gain by advocating a 1st choice vote for Brian Paddick. In a move that doubtless made political scientists the nation over saturate their newspapers and computer screens with spurted tea he wrote numerous articles to the affect of ‘Robocop’ Paddick being in with a chance of triumph.

This was at least a tad better than Andrew Gilligan, who offered no real excuse for his assault on a politician he agreed with, seeming to operate entirely out of dedicated malice, most likely inspired by the thorough trashing delivered to him by the Hutton Report. Understandable though his annoyance is with the Labour Government his actions doubtless contributed substantially to the victory of Johnson. They also meant that Cohen’s contrarian fluster was stolen by a man who had attempted to destroy the case for war that had been meticulously constructed by the Labour party and firmly defended, most notably, by Cohen. The two men were brought together in their efforts to eject a left politician in favour of a Tory.

Funny how these things work out.

Regardless of the sense behind this sordid little escapade it was certainly a success. Well, in so far as the singular socialist success story of this decade in this country was ended and a wealthy Etonian & Oxbridge old boy came to power and thus paved the way for his friend of identical credentials to take power.

If Paddick had not been around then perhaps this would not have been the case. He certainly did Livingstone few favours by the constant attacks. Worse still the focus of the debates was reduced by his very presence and it is unquestionable that more screen time would have provided more rope for him to hang himself with, not to mention the power of a direct and uninterrupted comparison of the two contenders almost certainly favouring Livingstone. This is not to say that Paddick had no place in the race, but simply to emphasise that with his share of the votes he would need to have done around four times as well to reach the second round.

Perhaps Cohen knew this. He is certainly not an unintelligent man and must have read the polls. It may have been quite simply an exercise in assuaging the guilt of his leftist audience. What I suspect that he did not know was Paddick’s second preference. Which was, in case you were unaware, for the anti-war, anti-Zionist
anti-American, highly sectarian, old school Trotskyite socialist SWP-front Left List, who are usually one of two parties referring to themselves as Respect and would have been in these elections had that been legal after a messy split involving esoteric accusations of “Communalism” and complaints about Democratic Centralism.

Yes, Cohen’s Livingstone loathing led him not only to join in a toad alliance with the man who exposed the central lies of the case for war in Iraq but also to repeatedly advocate electing instead a man who voted for the epitome of everything he dislikes about the left.

Ah well, at least Red Ken and his plans for affordable housing aren’t around anymore.

Boris, it seems, hasn’t read the Greater London Authority Act 1999. It has this to say on the subject of the Deputy Mayor:

49 The Deputy Mayor

(1) There shall be a Deputy Mayor of London (“the Deputy Mayor”).

(2) The Deputy Mayor shall have such functions as may be conferred or imposed upon him by or under this Act or any other enactment, whenever passed or made.

(3) The Deputy Mayor shall be appointed by the Mayor from among the Assembly members.

(4) A person must not hold the offices of Deputy Mayor and Chair of the Assembly at the same time.

(5) If the Mayor appoints as Deputy Mayor the person who is the Chair of the Assembly, a vacancy shall arise in the office of Chair of the Assembly.

(6) Subsections (4) and (5) above apply in relation to the Deputy Chair of the Assembly as they apply in relation to the Chair of the Assembly.

(7) A person appointed Deputy Mayor shall not act in that office unless or until he has satisfied in respect of his office as an Assembly member the requirements of section 28(1) above.

(8) A person shall cease to be the Deputy Mayor if—

(a) he ceases to be an Assembly member;

(b) he at any time gives notice of resignation as the Deputy Mayor to the proper officer of the Authority; or

(c) the Mayor at any time gives him notice terminating his appointment as Deputy Mayor.

(9) A person who ceases to be Deputy Mayor shall be eligible for reappointment.

Emphasis all mine. Note that it highlights that there should be just one Deputy Mayor, and that they must be an Assembly Member.

This, therefore, comes as something of a surprise. Boris today appointed Ray Young Deputy Mayor for Young People. He is neither elected, nor will he be single, if we’re to go by what Boris was saying as early as 2007.

I’ll give Boris the benefit of the doubt here. This is probably a simple misuse of language while he tries to delegate power, rather than a deliberate attempt to break the Act. But even that’s hardly encouraging - demonstrating as it does Boris’ total unfamiliarity with London’s local government. He wants to copy Bloomberg’s tactic of creating high-powered deputy mayors with specific remits, and so bulk ships in portfolios and titles from New York.

That this is incompatible with London’s closest equivalent to a constitutional document hasn’t stopped him. But it should do. He must either adopt Ken’s strategy of unelected, non-Assembly advisers (which, given how much he criticised Livingstone for it, would verge on hypocrisy), work for unelected Deputy Mayors to be included in the Act (which would be a tad undemocratic…) or (I prefer) call for more than one Deputy Mayor to be drawn from the elected Assembly. To do otherwise demonstrates ignorance of how the GLA actually works - perhaps wilful, given that this is public.

(Hat tip: Tory Troll)

That’s easy - a raging hypocrite and laughingstock.

He was, however the stalking terror. The one feared by the self-styled anti-nazis of prominence at LMHR, the one used to stir up voters by all three parties, the one who made all sources beg to get out the vote and dilute the power of a hard-core of racists. He was also the one that filled me with horror and shock when it was announced the BNP had won via top-up. At the head of the Party List that the BNP assembled they placed the name of their candidate for mayor.

Barnbrook is perhaps atypical of the standard BNP member. Firstly he is responsible for a film named HMS Discovery: A Love Story, which features whipping, gay sex and some naked chaps jumping into a river. His name is on the credits reel but he claims not to have written:

“It bares you like a foreskin’s folds”

Which is a pity because I find that quite beautiful. Or:

“Open-mouthed, I shall dream of altar boys.”

Which is probably for the best, really.

It actually sounds like it might be worth a viewing, perhaps even a public screening somewhere. I’m just not sure that this is exactly the representative that most of the party would have in mind for themselves.

If you want to find it, it’s filed under “Marxism”.

Secondly he was, at least at one point, proposed to Simone Clarke; the notorious BNP ballerina. He arranged a counter-protest to the one staged by UAF at her first public performance after The Guardian revealed her BNP membership in 2006. That aside their relationship, indeed her political affiliations, were rendered rather odd given that she had a half-Asian daughter aged 4 at the time. Barnbrook once remarked that “I’m not opposed to mixed marriages but their children are washing out the identity of this country’s indigenous people.”

Worse was to follow, though as the News of the World released an expose of his cheating ways, saying that he had slept to a woman who was not only not his partner but not from this country. Apparently he had had an almost affair with none other than a Finnish lady who he sent photos of his genitals to prior to their first actual meeting.

As you might have guessed in some respects this has not gone down too well with the far-right. Those I spoke to on the issue mentioned that Barnbrook’s organisation London BNP operates as an almost autonomous unit and, although nowhere near as opposed to Griffin as Yorkshire division, seems not to need him. Given that the BNP achieved only a quarter of what they had hopes for. On one level, then, the GLA seat serves as a consolation prize for the weakness of the party advance, while on the other the relative triumph of an internal organisation that operated apart from the rest of the party must leave a bitter taste through implicit comparison to the rest.

Regardless, Griffin could unquestionably have hoped for a more appropriate champion.

So it seems that the racist, homophobic BNP have placed into their most powerful position yet a director of a gay film that has had not only an affair but also been caught in an affair with an immigrant.

Still, the Finn only discovered her “average” lover’s political views upon finding a copy of Mein Kamph under the bed, a book that Griffin considers to contain “Some really useful ideas”. So there’s hope yet.

This post shall be brief. Ken Livingstone did a vast amount for this city, which is now in a position of esteem around the globe that was a vague fantasy eight years ago. Thankfully it was in his head and thus a mixture of effort from Londoners and measures from City Hall has brought us to a shining position.

To hear Ali suggest, then, that Livingstone was somehow not “credible” smacks me as simply absurd and lacking consideration of a comparison of London prior and after his policy implementations. I find it a real pity that somebody who knew and cared for the city as much as he did is out of power and I remain unconvinced of Boris’ views on this place.

He starts work tomorrow so it remains to be seen but he certainly has a lot to live up to.

Perhaps I’ve under-estimated Clegg’s political skills. The media swallowed his line on the results with barely a murmur of dissent. “Thursday night was a success for the Lib Dems,” comes the chorus. “They gained 31 seats nationally, and beat Labour to 2nd place.”

That’s not a success. The Lib Dems dropped from 26% of the national vote in the 2007 local elections to 25% this year. They did not rise to second place. Labour fell to third. If an election were to be carried out now under their beloved PR, the Liberal Democrats would lose out.

Yet the narrative is one of moderate success. And perhaps the reality is too - for Clegg’s spin.

That the party’s poor performance can, in part, be attributed to him, is not. It’s easy to see how the death in the water of his overblown plans to rebrand the Lib Dems, his awkward positioning over Europe and unfortunate personal admissions could have affected performance. Add to this the structural weaknesses of a party neither sure whether it is one thing, the other, or somewhere in between, and I do wonder how they ever hope to move beyond third-party politics…

Ali is absolutely right to say that the Lib Dems need a complete rebrand if they’re to get anywhere. If not, they’ll simply remain Westminster’s resident repository for protest votes - or worse.