Zac Goldsmith is the Tory candidate for London Mayor. But is he too posh to push?

As expected, Zac Goldsmith has won the Conservative nomination for next year’s Mayor of London race with a sweeping 71 per cent of the vote – but on a distressingly small turnout. Anyone in London could vote by paying £1, so there had been hopes of a high turnout – figures of 60,000 were mentioned. But a pitiful 9,227 turned out to vote, from a city of ten million. Given the excitement caused by Labour’s leadership race, this is hugely disappointing for the Tories — and bodes ill for the race now in prospect.

If the turnout was bad for Zac, it was worse for everyone else. Syed Kamall, an MEP for London, was second with 16 per cent. Stephen Greenhalgh, the irascible deputy mayor, came third on 9 per cent and the Tories’ GLA leader Andrew Boff (who didn’t even bother to put up a campaign website) came fourth with four per cent. So what now for Zac? His acceptance speech to London Tories this morning was lethargic, almost complacent.