Sticking my neck out part 1

I am going to stick my neck out and make a prediction. The London Mayoral election is not going to be that close. I think Boris will be something of the order of 15% ahead in the first round, my guess is that the votes will stack up 44-28 in the first round and after second preferences are taken into consideration I think the final tally will be something of the order of 56-44.

Of course I will probably be hopelessly wrong on this.

London Buses

Every day on my way to work I decide to get off of the tube one stop early and walk to my office. This provides me with about an extra 15-20 minutes of walking and I consider it some valuable exercise. I am usually doing this walk in the environs of Oxford Street at about 8:30am. Over the last few weeks I have been observing the buses as I walk to work, this being a fairly busy part of London with one imagines lots of people starting work around there at 9:00 or thereabouts. The curious thing I have noticed is the number of buses that have relatively few passengers. Now along my route there are a wide variety of different number bus, so clearly they are following different routes and coming from and going to different places and yet bus after bus is severely underoccupied. The other day in point of fact I noticed within 5 or so minutes down the same stretch of road two buses of the same route, both of them were double-decker buses, one had 2 passengers on it the other had no passengers visible on it. So this was one bus with the driver and cost thereof, all the fuel and cost thereof, all the pollution and cost thereof with no passengers.

Now clearly one cannot draw full conclusions from the rather prosaic and anecdotal evidence I have outlined, however I think that there could well be a case for looking at the servicing of routes. If we have within minutes of each other buses following the same route and carrying a combined number of passengers that would fit comfortably onto just the one bus it might be worth just taking a look. Obviously there may be portions of the route that are more in demand, and what I am seeing is not representative of the whole story. That would be a perfectly fair thing to suggest, and I would be prepared to accept that, however I think that when one of the largest bus fleets in western Europe is being talked about we need to be confident that it is being used most effectively. 

I would urge whoever wins London’s Mayoral election to instigate a review of bus routes and service provision. It is essential that we are not supplying buses where there is no demand, because it could be at the expense of fuelling demand where there is no supply. We need to have a bus service that is responsive and that is most effectively deployed. I would also suggest that whilst none of us would want to use an overcrowded bus most of us would be more than happy if we didn’t have an entire bus deck to ourselves. I think that a fullscale route review would be beneficial and that a periodic fullscale review should be instigated to ensure that London’s buses are always most effectively deployed. It is no good happily supplying yesterday’s demand whilst today’s goes unsupplied, and tomorrow’s is not even thought about. Over time usage patterns must change and the Mayor of London needs to ensure that the service pattern is as well matched to usage as can be acheived.

Mayoral Election

Firstly an apology for lack of religious posting, I have had ‘flu so haven’t felt up to posting. It’s a poor excuse I know but I’m sticking to it!!

So yet another YouGov poll yesterday and Boris is now 13 points clear of Ken on First Preference votes. This is good news. It shows that the feeling of time for a change in London is gathering momentum. Ken unsurprisingly is shooting the messenger again and going bananas about this poll. The last three YouGov polls have shown Boris at 12, 10, and 13 points clear, if as Ken contends they are wrong then they are fairly consistently wrong. Polling nowadays is pretty good, and the YouGov methodology is fairly widely accepted as far as I can see and yet Ken is up in arms. In fact he now reminds me of Captain Redbeard Rum in the Blackadder series and his attitude to whether crews were essential, “Opinion is divided on the subject, all the other Captains say they are, I say they aren’t”.

I for my two penneth think the YouGov poll is fairly accurate, it may be slightly over-estimating the size of the Boris lead but I would suspect that Boris is in the lead by a margin and that that is what Ken is upset about. Ken can see his retirement looming with increasing rapidity. The next few weeks are going to be rather interesting!!

Ken Livingstone doesn’t like the YouGov poll

So yesterday a new Opinion Poll was published in the Evening Standard, it showed Boris Johnson down a shade on 47% and Ken Livingstone on 37% unmoved from the last poll. Boris Johnson therefore has a lead over the incumbent of 10%. Within a very short period the Livingstone campaign issued a press release that attempted to trash the YouGov poll. I am not going to deal with the points that the Mayor made as it has been done comprehensively elsewhere. I just wonder if the publishing vehicle is colouring his judgement? I mean he clearly has a thing against the Evening Standard.

3000 receipts

I was amused by the story of the gentleman who requested a receipt for his congestion charge and was sent 3000 copies. That is a collossal waste of postage he only wanted one receipt. Whilst I hope that this is a temporary problem with the system it is the latest in a long run of issues with the congestion charge. There have been people who have been fined who were not even in London at the time or who were too young to drive. It seems that even now there are glitches. If I had received 3000 copies of the same receipt I would be severely annoyed, if I was a London taxpayer who had effectively licked the stamps on 2999 surplus letters I would want some answers.

Andrew Gilligan

So Gilligan has got one of his targets, we will have to wait until May to see if he gets his number one target, Ken Livingstone. One thing though, Boris now has a very good shot at taking down Ken. The thing that is clear in the whole series of Gilligan scoops is that he clearly has a very good source as he seems to be able to get hold of documents and email trails from the heart of the Mayors empire. Who knows it could be multiple sources, whatever they have been extremely useful in dishing the dirt on what on the face of it looks like some pretty shady dealings.

Lee Jasper quits

It is a welcome development, let us hope that the important questions don’t go unanswered. These questions revolve around allegations of misdirection of public funds. We need to get to the bottom of this mess, and whoever is investigating needs to ignore the inevitable Jasper smokescreen of allegations of racism. This isn’t about racism it is about another ‘ism’, cronyism.

Why Ken has a re-election problem

So in a few short weeks London goes to the polls to elect its Mayor for 2008-2012. The three major party Candidates have been campaigning for a little while now and I thought it was time to have a look at what might occur on polling day. The conventional wisdom is that whilst it will probably be a close contest that the candidate in the box seat is the incumbent Ken Livingstone. I want to show in the course of this blog why I think that is incorrect and that actually Ken has a big problem. In order to do this I will give a little bit of a history lesson.

Firstly let us go back to 2000 the first mayoral election which Ken won, and look at how he won and. Back then Ken was running as an independent and had been kicked out of Labour, he won in London handsomely by pulling together a disparate coalition of sizeable chunks of the Labour vote angry that he hadn’t been selected as the Labour candidate, independently minded voters who liked Ken’s outsider status and soft Tories, Lib Dems and assorted others. His campaign was highly driven by personality and a machine that was mainly made up of the angry Labour supporters mentioned. Remember there was a huge furore in London Labour over Ken not gaining the selection and the way the Labour leadership had seemed to stack the voting system against Ken. The Conservatives fielded Steve Norris after their initial candidate Jeffrey Archer had been forced out of the race under a cloud. The Lib Dem candidate was Susan Kramer, now a Member of Parliament. Labour put up Frank Dobson . At the time the Conservatives in London were virtually nowhere and Ken had no record in terms of London having been an MP with no executive responsibility for London policy, the GLC having been abolished in 1986. That Ken Livingstone won easily was not a surprise.

Move forward 4 years to 2004, and what do we get, Ken runs for re-election. This was no real surprise, the Conservatives again field Steve Norris, and the Lib Dems fielded Simon Hughes. Now initially the Labour candidate was Nicky Gavron, however shortly before the election Labour decided to bury the hatchet with Ken and readmit him to the party and accept him as their candidate. This was a bit of a surprise at the time and caused a little comment. I think though there is an explanation for it. The Conservatives had picked up a little support in respect of London in the four years between 2000 and 2004, this wouldn’t have been a problem but for Ken’s independent status. I think that Ken Livingstone and Labour saw what was likely to happen, and it was something like this. Ken had had four years as Mayor with a record, his outsider status whilst still valuable was somewhat diminished and consequently some of his vote would have shed. The initial anger at Ken not being the original Labour Candidate would have subsided and some more of Ken’s support would have drifted from Ken to Nicky Gavron. I think the thought that washed over both Ken and Labour was that Ken’s vote would switch back to the official Labour candidate and that Steve Norris would come through the middle. Add to that the fact that independent Livingstone would have had a much more limited machine behind him and that scenario is increasingly plausible. The fact also that the final result was closer even with Ken as Labour shows that the idea that Ken as independent with a Labour candidate could have lost to Norris is at least an idea worth entertaining. I suspect that both Labour and Ken saw this and so Labour patched things up with Ken and made him their candidate. I think this alone saved Ken from a possible defeat and it is why Ken was so desperate to be readmitted to Labour in the run-up to the 2004 Mayoral poll.

Now let us look at the possibilities in 2008. Well Ken will be Labour’s candidate for a second election and is vying for a third term overall. After 8 years his character vote is probably exhausted, as is his outsider vote. In fact with the Conservatives putting up Boris Johnson he has to contend for the votes of those who simply want a character in the job. Secondly he has a sizeable record to defend, some of it is good which will encourage support some bad which will dissuade support. Overall Ken’s record is neither going to help nor I would have thought would it overly hinder him. Ken as Labour candidate has access to the political machine of Labour, however that is not what it was in 2004, also Labour is significantly weaker generally in 2008 than in 2004. This puts Ken at a disadvantage and the relative weakness of Labour’s machine will harm efforts to turn out vote. Now we need to add in the fact that the Conservatives in London are significantly stronger than in 2004, if we look at the London-wide local elections in 2006 the Conservative vote was very solid and there is nothing to suggest that that has weakened significantly in the last 2 years and if anything may have strengthened. This together with a highly recognisable candidate in Boris Johnson and the fact that Ken Livingstone will galvanise the solid core Conservative vote like no other candidate and the fact that all the evidence points to the Conservative vote being more solid and certain to vote than any other and that is a sizeable advantage to the Conservatives in London. There are other reasons for Ken to be fearful, in 2004 the Mayoral election coincided with the Euro elections, this massively increased support for UKIP, which was a much more cohesive force than now. The likelihood is that UKIP vote share will be significantly down in 2008 comparative to 2004. Some of it may just stay at home, however if it goes anywhere it will more than likely go to Boris Johnson the Conservative candidate.

Now I am not suggesting that Boris Johnson is a virtual shoo-in for next Mayor of London, but I would suggest that the Conservatives have sizeable in built advantages in this campaign. I would also not suggest that Ken Livingstone cannot win, but looking at the changes from 2004 to now and this is clearly going to be the hardest election Ken has ever fought. Also whilst the Lib Dems have a decent candidate in Brian Paddick and there are a number of other candidates for other parties too, this election is pretty much going to boil down to the two big characters. This is the Ken and Boris election, candidates identifiable on a first name only and both with huge voter recognition. Clearly I think the election will be close but I think that the balance of advantages is clearly against Ken Livingstone, to my mind Boris Johnson has the organisation, the voter recognition, the background climate of disenchantment with Labour and a solid Conservative vote in London in his favour. Ken has a reasonable record in his, with a weakened organisation, ties to Labour that will hinder and a sense that maybe 8 years is long enough. All in all a fascinating contest beckons and one which the Conservatives are quite well placed to win. Ken Livingstone could be facing his last hurrah!

Boris for Mayor

Boris Johnson is coming in for one hell of a bashing at the moment. It is difficult to see this as anything other than a concerted attempt at character assassination. It tells me one thing, that Boris has Labour and Ken rattled. Why waste the time if he was a no-hope candidate?

Firstly I think it is a good thing that his opponents are getting hysterical already, it means that they will throw all the crap before the campaign actually gets noticed. Secondly it gives Boris time over the summer to come up with a serious platform and a detailed point by point rebuttal of every one of the accusations that have been tossed in his direction. It also means that at no stage can Ken ever resort to claiming that Boris is a ‘frivolous’ candidate. They can’t take him seriously now and change their minds when it suits them. The message Ken and his vicarious support squad are sending is that Boris is serious and they are seriously concerned.

I am not going to go into all the allegations and comments that have been made but I will make one general point. The attack squads have been laughable to be honest, they have tried to paint Boris Johnson as a cross between Atilla the Hun and Genghis Khan dressed up as a cross between Forest Gump and Compo. It is one of the most ridiculous set of assertions I have ever heard. I can guarantee that there will be more, lets just hope it is as good as now because frankly some of it is beyond parody.