A mayor for Whitehall

Siobhan Benita’s sanctimonious and mystifying bid to run London

Ken Livingstone wept last week at the launch of his election broadcast, but when it comes to narcissistic self-pity, he’s been outdone by Siobhan Benita. ­Benita’s the other candidate in the London mayoral contest, the one who isn’t Boris or Ken or Brian or that Green woman. A former civil servant now running as an independent, she’s spent the last month wailing about lack of coverage. She claims she is the victim of a media ‘blackout’ — excluded from televised debates and banished from the airwaves. So great is her fury that she has even demanded a meeting with BBC executives. ‘I feel I am banging my head against a brick wall of institutions that are averse to change,’ she says.

But Benita’s pose as a British Aung San Suu Kyi could not be more wrongheaded. The mystery isn’t why she’s had so little attention, it’s why her candidacy has been absurdly puffed up by the press in recent weeks.