Boris v Ken - the rematch

[Anthony Williams]

With the London Mayoral election due to take place on Thursday, I'm surprised that PS doesn't already have a discussion on this, the biggest electoral re-match in recent history!

In the Blue corner, we have maverick Tory Boris Johnson, while in the Red corner, we have the maverick Labour candidate, "Red" Ken Livingstone.

Who do you think will win? Who do you want to win?

In my personal opinion, I feel that Boris is the stronger candidate. He's distanced himself from the Coalition government, and openly criticises them. He has fulfilled a whopping 91% of the promises that he made for his first term. All-in-all, I think he's been a very good Mayor.

Which is the last thing I can say about Livingstone, who has waged an exceedingly dirty campaign, while supporting an extremely corrupt candidate for the Mayoralty of Tower Hamlets. His previous record in office shows him pandering to extremist Muslims when it suits him and using racial slurs against Jews. Oh, and his promises in this campaign include things that he would have no power to do if he were to be elected Mayor again.

Frankly, I hope Boris gets re-elected.

[Perry Vale]

That's all very well and good, but Ken is going to cut fares. That's got my vote sewn up, sorry!

[WhiteCrowNZ]

Hmmm - I'm reading this, and somehow Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Two Tribes has got into my head. If only they could settle this like gentlemen by bludgeoning each other to death in a boxing ring ...

[Would make politics much more interesting]

[Perry Vale]

He has fulfilled a whopping 91% of the promises that he made for his first term.

Has he really? I don't know, but this suggests it's more like 36%...

http://www.labourmatters.com/tory-bo...n-promises.pdf

[Alex]

With the London Mayoral election due to take place on Thursday, I'm surprised that PS doesn't already have a discussion on this, the biggest electoral re-match in recent history!

In the Blue corner, we have maverick Tory Boris Johnson, while in the Red corner, we have the maverick Labour candidate, "Red" Ken Livingstone.

Who do you think will win? Who do you want to win?

In my personal opinion, I feel that Boris is the stronger candidate. He's distanced himself from the Coalition government, and openly criticises them. He has fulfilled a whopping 91% of the promises that he made for his first term. All-in-all, I think he's been a very good Mayor.

Which is the last thing I can say about Livingstone, who has waged an exceedingly dirty campaign, while supporting an extremely corrupt candidate for the Mayoralty of Tower Hamlets. His previous record in office shows him pandering to extremist Muslims when it suits him and using racial slurs against Jews. Oh, and his promises in this campaign include things that he would have no power to do if he were to be elected Mayor again.

Frankly, I hope Boris gets re-elected.

Ha, that's a very selective take on Boris, and a very harsh one on Ken (though I am very very disappointed in him of late over the tax scandal, and that video where all the 'real life Londoners' turned out to be scripted actors). But Boris has his own 'scandals' - http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...ds-accusations - for instance, and there was his attempts to play down the phone hacking scandal at the Metropolitan Police, before we discovered how serious the situation was. There are more, too, and I'm struggling to think of anything he's done for London that has improved the city.

That said, neither of them are getting my vote. I haven't decided between Paddick or the Greens yet, and need to do a bit more research tomorrow.

[SiHart]

And lets not forget, Boris didn't invent the "Boris" bikes, ken did, Boris just implemented them. And remember, Boris wouldn't cut his holiday short when the riots were running last summer, so the job obviously isn't that important to him.

I think we've had enough of Boris now. People only voted him in for a laugh, so lets get someone competent in to run London now.

[Rob McCow]

I'm not that keen on Ken but Boris makes me sick. I've never seen anyone so blatantly sat in a position of authority solely for the prestige.

They should get rid of Boris so that he can write a book on his time as Mayor... oh wait he did that while he was Mayor!

Ken isn't the only person who's capable of gaffes. If Boris wins we'll get to see his Olympic efforts at insulting every nation on Earth, just like he did at the handover ceremony from the Chinese - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/oly...rformance.html

His dismantaling of the Western Extension to the Congestion Charge Zone was a phenomenal waste of money too. His transport policy that there should be no new traffic signals and no additional delay for motorists has put a stranglehold on road improvements in terms of safety and other modes of transport.

On the plus side, Boris did pull the Christian 'Cure The Gays' advert campaign from the sides of London Buses. But I'd have expected any mayoral candidate to have done that (maybe not UKIP).

Boris Johnson! He'll make them laugh.

[Si Hunt]

I don't know if it was anti-Ken propaganda but there was a web article the other week just after Ken had been on the campaign trail and it claimed he was literally going round making stuff up. So he'd do an appearance and declare "Knife crime fell in every one of my terms!" and the blogger looked up the stats and it blatantly hadn't. So he was just making up impressive stats on the grounds that no-one could check them at the time.

Boris, I don't like "Boris buses", the name - the egotism of naming things after you. I don't like the "celebrity mayor". There's something about that than worries me. In fact, don't each of them keep scrapping the others buses every time they get into power at a cost of millions? I don't trust either of them!

Si.

[Stuart Wallis]

Ken's a sneaky weasel; Boris is London's Resident Oaf; the rest are faceless wonders. I'm glad I'm not having to vote in the mayoral election. If I were, i'd vote for Katy Manning.

And why not?

[Junkyard]

'You can telll when politicians are lying. Their lips move!'....Max Headroom.

That being said, I distrust Boris somewhat less than Ken. At the moment I'm still undecided.

[duncan]

I'm not voting for Ken, I just don't trust him. He campaigned against PPP on the Underground while running for Mayor a few terms ago and ended up allowing the Private Partnership to go ahead. This almost crippled TFL and is the reason why we started shedding thousands of jobs three years ago. Ken also believes that the council tax is his to do what he likes with and while Greenwich Council kept their share on hold for two years running while he was in power, he stuck his share up by 25%.

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

Rather frustratingly even though I pay for a monthly travelcard and use the tube at least 5 days a week I don't get a vote because of living in the district of Epping Forest. However it is a difficult choice to make between Shambles and Red Ken. It'd be nice if any of the other candidates stood a chance of winning but I fear Mayor Shambles will get a second term.

[Rob McCow]

This website lists some reasons to vote against Boris Johnson:

http://moronwatch.net/2012/05/why-lo...tch-boris.html

[Anthony Williams]

And this one lists some reasons to vote against Ken Livingstone...

http://vote4ken.org/

[Rob McCow]

The Ken site is interesting, though it does seem to rely more on personal slurs and quotes, making Ken appear guilty by associating him with hate preachers.

If he was a new candidate, I think that would be cause for concern; but he has been Mayor before and there didn't seem to be an extreme rise in racism during that time.

I approve of most of Ken's policies that he introduced as Mayor and the ones that he's proposing now, more so than I do with Boris. I think Boris' time as Mayor has been disasterous, culminating in the riots that swept the captial and the country. Those riots could have been avoided with the right policies and leadership; Boris Johnson failed to prevent them.

[SiHart]

Those riots could have been avoided with the right policies and leadership; Boris Johnson failed to prevent them.

And indeed come back from his holiday to deal with them.

[Anthony Williams]

And indeed come back from his holiday to deal with them.

To be fair, Boris did cut short his holiday and return to London to try and deal with the riots. It's Cameron who stayed abroad on his holiday in a cushy Italian villa.

Granted, Boris has his failings. But, in my mind, they are greatly outweighed by Ken's own failings - during his two terms in office, he consorted with Islamic extremists, gave public money out to his cronies - over 1.6 million pounds got paid out to his aides after he lost the 2008 Mayoral election. His comments over Embassies not paying the Congestion Charge could've sparked several diplomatic crises. And let's not mention his crass hypocracy over tax-dodging.

In fact, even the Labour party seem to be regretting putting him forward as their candidate. As even Dan Hodges, a member of the Labour pary, puts forward on his blog.

The point is... Ken was rejected by Londoners in 2008. Why should he be given a second chance, and allowed to bring back his corruption and cronyism?

[SiHart]

Well the only people who can decide are Londoners. We'll see later on what they decide.

[Perry Vale]

His comments over Embassies not paying the Congestion Charge could've sparked several diplomatic crises.

As I recall, Boris took exactly the same stance.

[duncan]

London Elects has real time updates as the ballot papers are scanned. Boris is currently in the lead as of 12:37pm. Jenny Jones of the Greens is beating Brian Paddick of the lib dems into 4th place

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

Independent candidate Siobhan Benita seems to have made a respectable showing as well. It'll interesting to see which of those three actually comes in third.

[Rob McCow]

I'm even more in favour of seeing Boris losing now, just to annoy the Evening Standard!

But it looks like he's going to get another term as Mayor.

Fair enough, just don't f*** it up!

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

Classic BBC News 24 cock-up just now. The onscreen caption spelt Ken's name as Livinstone, now corrected of course.

[Anthony Williams]

By Jove! Boris only went and secured another four years!

[Alex]

Here's a nice quote from your "hero", Ant.

"if gay marriage was okay – and I was uncertain of that issue – then I saw no reason why a union should not therefore be consecrated between three men, as well as two men; or indeed three men and a dog"