Boris v Ken: London Mayoral Battle
Popular Conservative Hoping To Become Mayor In "Celebrity" Election
The London 2008 mayoral race is practically down to two candidates and even the popular Boris Johnson may find it hard to upstage the current mayor Ken Livingstone.
In the battle for London has effectively been narrowed down to two candidates. Both popular enough to be known and recognised by their first names alone, Labour's 'Red' Ken Livingstone and the Conservative Boris Johnson will face each other on May 1 2008 for the job that is widely thought of as the second most powerful post in British politics and carries one of the largest mandates in Europe. The personalities of the two main contenders have already taken over the contest, with Livingstone already having to insist in The Guardian: "this election is not Celebrity Big brother".
"Beano" Boris Johnson
Johnson, recently shown as having a twelve point lead over Livingstone in an Evening Standard poll is campaining on an "it's time for change" slogan, and a Conservative win would send serious shock waves to the Labour Party, at the moment trying to recover from three major opinion polls that show the Tories ahead by two digit figures in places, a lead not enjoyed by the Conservaties since the days of Margaret Thatcher.
Member of Parliament for Henley in Oxfordshire, Johnson is one of the most popular and well known among the revived Conservative Party, through a priviledged background (educated at Eton, a prestigious public school and Oxford where he was a member of the notorious Bullingdon drinking society) and the numerous gaffes he has made while holding various Shadow Cabinet posts, in one of which he linked cannabalism and the inhabitants of modern Papua New Guinea and was forced to issue a hasty apology. Sacked as Conservative spokesman on Culture after denying rumours of an affair in November 2004, Johnson's popularity has nonetheless soared, rising to become undoubtedley one of Britain's most well-known politicans through a series of appearences on political TV shows, a column in The Daily Telegraph and frequent run-ins with the tabloids. His eccentricities clearly do not seem to be a major hinderance just yet, Ken Livingstone, his main opponent has been forced to take him much more seriously- gone are the gags and cheeky references, Boris is beginning to portray himself as a "serious" politician and is gaining momentum by doing so.
Cycling and Heathrow Airport
A prolific bicycle rider, one of Johnson's policies is to improve cycle paths and create better parking for bikes, one way of wooing the Greens it might be said, who look increasingly likely to hold the power through secondary candidate voting should the Boris-Ken contest finish inconclusively. Back to his Tory roots, he also advocates zero tolerance on litter and graffiti but like Livingstone, opposes expansion at London Heathrow Airport, a move that will appeal to the Left and also to Londoners in the suburbs sick of hearing a plane flying overhead every other minute of the day. Rather than attacking Livingstone and his policies directly, Johnson is appealing for change for the sake of change; Ken and his administration have been in power too long (Livingstone was first elected mayor in 2000), are getting complacent and failures are starting to outnumber successes he claims.
Secondary Votes On May 1st
In the poll on May 1st, if no single candidate recieves more than fifty percent of the votes outright, the list of runners is cut down to the top two and secondary votes come into play. Recently Mr Johnson recieved a knock, with Sian Berry, candidate for the Green Party announcing she "could not bear" the thought of Mr Johnson winning the election and would be casting her second vote in favour of Mr Livingstone (BBC News).
A commentator recently wrote in the Guardian: "you could hardly slot a bus ticket between the two candidates' policies", and many are now wondering if this election will indeed become a personality contest.
