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Oona King to run as Labour candidate for mayoral election
Once one of “Blair’s Babes“, former Labour MP Oona King has thrown down the gauntlet to former Mayor Ken Livingstone with the announcement of her official bid to become Labour’s candidate to run for London mayor in 2012.
King served as the second black woman MP in Britain after Diane Abbott, the MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, who was elected in 1987.
Until her defeat by Respect’s George Galloway in 2005, King represented Bethnal Green and Bow in the Commons for 8 years from 1997 to 2005 under Prime Minister Tony Blair’s leadership.
In a 2007 autobiography titled “House Music: The Oona King diaries“, King details her life as an MP, including the challenges she faced after announcing her support of Britain’s role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
King, currently head of diversity at Channel 4, will have to defeat anti-establishment Labour candidate Livingstone to compete against Conservative incumbent Mayor Boris Johnson in 2012. Last year, Livingstone announced a challenge to Johnson.
Livingstone was the first elected mayor of London. He was elected as an independent candidate in 2000, but in 2004 he ran for the post again under the Labour banner and served as mayor until 2008 when he was defeated by Johnson.
He was leader of the Greater London Council from 1981 until Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s government abolished it in 1986.
Big task looms for Boris Johnson
(Updated on May 3 with new headline, election results, reaction and photos)
**For full coverage of the elections go to our special page**
The man described by some as a joke, by others as a brilliant mind has ended Ken Livingstone’s eight-year reign at City Hall.
The verdict is still out on what exactly Boris Johnson’s victory means for the Conservative Party overall but his performance as mayor could help determine whether people will vote for the Tories in a general election next time.
Johnson, whose experience of running big projects is limited, will lead one of the world’s most high-profile cities with an 11.3 billion pound budget to run public transport, police and fire services and promote the economy of this global financial centre.
The Labour Party may be hoping that the gaffe-prone “blond bombshell” will prove incapable of doing the job and thus damage the Conservatives chances of winning the next election. Johnson will have to get cracking soon with strong policies to bolster his image and become the ambassador that the Tories need him to be as the capital’s mayor.
Johnson paid generous tribute to Livingstone in his victory speech, describing him as “a very considerable public servant” and acknowledging that many who had voted for him had been wavering when it came to casting their votes.
David, your sweeping generalisation of people from the North of England thinking Labour is for the working class is demeaning.
It’s like saying all Landaners like jellied eels,pie and mash and doin the Lambeth Walk.
Mayoral hopefuls take the Shakespeare test
Should Shakespeare be a factor for Londoners voting for their next mayor on May 1?
The three leading mayoral candidates revealed their knowledge of the Bard on Friday in a live phone-in debate with host Vanessa Feltz on her BBC London morning radio show .
Asked by “David in Finchley” which Shakespearian character best described them, London Mayor Ken Livingstone said he would like to be associated with Julius Caesar .
“Trouble is, I’m sitting next to a couple of Brutuses,” he japed.
Conservative rival Boris Johnson said he hoped to be likened in future to Pericles.
“Pericles, of course, was responsible for the rejuvenation of Athens … and the wonderful thing about the Athenian system was its democracy.
Ken – Antonio, the false Duke Of Milan in The Tempest.
Boris – Brutus, Caesar’s assassin in Julius Caesar.
The rest? Bit players. One or other of these two will win the day. Either Antonio survives by villainous trickery or Brutus slips the knife between his ribs (seems a bit naughty but he did claim to have done it for the good of Rome).
Mayor of London Q&A answers
Reuters Online invited readers to send in their questions to the four leading candidates in the Mayor of London election.
Transport and the Congestion Charge dominated your questions, but you also wanted to know about race relations.
Here are the answers from Labour’s Ken Livingstone, Conservative Boris Johnson, LibDem Brian Paddick and the Green Party’s Sian Berry.
For Ken Livingstone’s answers, read here
For Boris Johnson’s answers, read here
For Brian Paddick’s answers, read here
For the Sian Berry’s answers, read here
On the issue of youths carrying knives and guns and utilising our transport systems especially buses to carry them around, I strongly believe that introducing some form of “metal detectors” at bus entrances should help in deterring this act. Although the idea might be tricky in case of “bendy buses”, it should help with other type of buses.
Not another debate, please! But this one is with fluffy toys…
The three leading candidates for the post of London mayor battle it out in the “Rainbow London Mayor Debate”. Watch Boris Johnson fighting hard to convince voters he can run the show at City Hall, Ken Livingstone campaigning on key issues like the buses, while Brian Paddick is trying to get a word in edgeways…not much difference to previously televised debates….except for the outfits!
Heat is on at Reuters Newsmaker with London mayor candidates
** For full coverage of the mayoral election go to our special report **
Safer streets, better housing, more reliable transport….that’s what Ken Livingstone, Boris Johnson and Brian Paddick all want for London and it’s probably what most Londoners want for their city. But what’s the big difference then between “Red Ken”, “Crazy Boris” and …”Policeman turned Politician” Brian Paddick?
That’s still hard to fathom two weeks ahead of the May 1 London mayor election. But there was an air of tetchiness and getting personal during a Reuters Newsmaker debate at Reuters headquarters in London in front of an invited audience of around 250 people.
Liberal Democrat candidate Paddick told Livingstone he had “lost the plot” during his second term.
Ken “vote for me, I’m worth it” Livingstone hit out at Conservative candidate Johnson saying among the hardest decisions he ever had to take was to decide where to go for lunch with his former staff at “The Spectator” while he was editor of the right-wing magazine.
Johnson himself lashed out at the mayor for being inconsistent in his policies (“he wants millions of Chinese to come to London as tourists but is against a third runway at Heathrow” he said of Ken) and for “overpaying” his officials at City Hall. Ken himself was candid about what type of tourist he wants – the ones who spend the most money….not the Belgians…who according to him spend the least.
Under pressure from a lack of experience in managing large teams and projects, Johnson broke new ground (for himself) by finally announcing one person to join his ranks – Bob Diamond, the U.S.-born president of Barclays will join his team of advisors.
Paddick won’t serve in a rival’s City Hall
In the first televised debate between the three main London mayoral candidates, we learned that former police chief Brian Paddick would not accept a job in a rival’s administration.
Paddick, who needs a huge swing in support to have any chance of election, has said that as mayor he would personally chair the Metropolitan Police Authority, which oversees the capital’s police.
But the Liberal Democrat candidate’s reply was quite clear when asked on BBC’s Newsnight whether he would serve under a re-elected Mayor Ken Livingstone, if offered the chance of running London police policy.
“No, I would not,” Paddick told host Jeremy Paxman during Tuesday’s programme.
“When I left the police I promised myself that I would only take advice, I would not take orders any more.”
We also learned that Livingstone would vote for Paddick — if forced to choose between him and the Tory runner Boris Johnson.
Perhaps little surprise there, but Labour’s Livingstone was the only one to answer Paxman’s question — which of the other two candidates would they vote for if they couldn’t vote for themselves.
Call him Johnson
Every time Labour ministers call the Conservative candidate for London mayor by first name alone they’ll have to pay £5 into a ‘swear box’.
“What we have to avoid is a situation where people think this election is a joke and that the future of London is not serious,” Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell told Sky News.
If this is all about taking the upcoming election seriously though, why has there been no similar decree regarding “Ken” (Livingstone), the equally maverick Labour candidate? And what will Labour do with all the money it makes from ministers who slip up?
They could use the money to buy a leaving present for Ken, but perhaps that would be too nice a gesture for the “nasty party”.
Choose your advisers with care
Brian Paddick criticises the suggestion that Conservative London mayor candidate Boris Johnson could run the capital as a kind of chairman supported by expert advisers.
“I think a lot of people are prepared to entertain the idea of Boris Johnson as mayor on the assumption that he will be surrounded by advisers, who will effectively run London for him,” the Liberal Democrat candidate said in an interview with Reuters.
“If you allow your personal advisers that amount of power, you end up with the sort of allegations of corruption that Ken Livingstone has had to face.”
Click on video below | You can read a longer interview here
No, of course I am not going to run City hall as a one man band. I am going to openly advertise for the posts of Mayoral advisors and ensure London gets the best people for the job rather than people who happen to know the Mayor or who have worked with him in the past. Personal patronage is what is happening now and that is what the Conservative candidate plans to do if he becomes Mayor and London deserves better. I am also going to listen to Londoners, something I did when I was in the police, something the current Mayor no longer does and something that the Conservative candidate has never done. The problem with Livingstone is not that he does not listen to his advisors, it is that his advisors have their own personal agendas and he listens to no-one else.
Ken narrows the gap
Last week in an interview with Reuters Ken Livingstone dismissed his rival Boris Johnson’s 12 point lead in the race for London Mayor in a YouGov poll as a quirk, resulting from its method of surveying voters over the internet.
He said a Guardian ICM poll using more traditional methods — telephoning a sample of voters — would show him in a much better position.
He would appear to have been proved correct — the poll, published online on Wednesday evening, shows he has narrowed the gap with Johnson to just 2 points, once second preference votes are counted.
The poll forecasts a narrow victory in the election on May 1 for Johnson with 51 percent of final votes and Livingstone on 49 percent.
On first choice votes the gap is even slimmer, with Johnson on 42 percent, Livingstone on 41 percent and Liberal Democrat Brian Paddick trailing far behind on 10 percent.
Commonsense will prevail. Livingstone is a newt breeder.
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The Wall
