London underground

The early signs from the local elections

Tonight, there seems to be a general acceptance that Boris has won London. The talk is of a four points plus victory. But it is worth, of course, remembering that no votes have been counted and there’s been no exit poll. But, sadly, it appears that there will be few other mayoralties created this evening. The opposition of the local political establishment appears to have triumphed in nearly all the cities holding referendums on whether or not to have a mayor. Their loss is Liverpool’s gain which will benefit considerably if it is the largest city outside London with a mayor. In terms of the council results, the very early

Boris wins the popularity contest

So, after all that, it looks like today’s London Mayoral will be just a little bit of history repeating. YouGov’s final poll predicts that Boris will defeat Ken in the second round by 53 to 47 — exactly the same result we saw four years ago. The third place finisher will probably be the same too: the poll has Brian Paddick getting 7 per cent in the first round, ahead of Siobhan Benita and UKIP’s Lawrence Webb on 4 and Green Jenny Jones on 3. If Boris does overcome Labour’s partisan advantage in London, it won’t be mainly down to his achievements in office. In fact, voters are split 39-38

Why Labour supporters should shun Ken

The single funniest thing about the London mayoral election has been watching the Left trying to excuse tax avoidance. After I revealed that his idol, Ken Livingstone, had saved a fortune by channelling six-figure earnings through a personal company, the Guardian’s Dave Hill pleaded that Ken’s previous condemnations of tax-dodgers ‘had been aimed at extremely rich people — which he isn’t,’ so that’s all right, then. The Independent’s Owen Jones frothed that ‘the 1 per cent have an interest in demonising Ken Livingstone.’ But, Owen, Ken is the 1 per cent! What’s been just as notable, though, in the last three months is quite how few of Labour’s finest have

Boris has won already, says bookie

We may still be 19 hours away from the polls opening — and more than 48 away from hearing the result — but bookmaker Paddy Power has already paid out £20,000 to punters who bet on Boris. It’s a publicity stunt by the company, but one that’s unlikely to backfire, with the pollsters agreeing that Boris is set for re-election — the only question seems to be how much he’ll win by. YouGov show him 4 points ahead of Ken in the second round, ComRes have him up by 8, Survation 10 and Populus 12. Paddy Power says that 94 per cent of the bets they took on the race

The Lib Dems jostle for airtime

Yep, they’re inescapable, those Lib Dems. Even when the airwaves are dominated by Rupert Murdoch and Tom Watson, they’re there in the background, quietly adding to the day’s pile of political news. We’ve got Ken Livingstone making a pitch for their votes in the London Mayor’s contest, for instance. And we’ve also got Nick Clegg on what seems like every radio show on air, giving his account of why folk should be Lib Dem voters in the first place. There have been two more significant scraps of LibDemmery than those, though. The first came in one of Clegg’s radio appearances, when he said that he isn’t ‘hung up’ on who

Boris extends his lead

As we enter the final stretch of the campaign for London Mayor, YouGov have a new poll putting Boris four points ahead of Ken. It’s a touch better for the blue team than the 2 point lead YouGov found last week, but not as comfortable as the 8- and 10-point leads shown by ComRes and Survation respectively. Despite dropping a bit further behind Boris, Ken does not seem to be suffering from Labour supporters turning their backs on him. Indeed, he now gets 92 per cent of those Labour general election voters who express a preference between him and Boris — the highest level of party loyalty YouGov have found

An anti-Labour leaflet in a pro-Labour font

The leaflet pictured above landed on my doorstep in Peckham last week. It’s the most interesting piece of election literature I’ve received this year — not because of its words, but because of its graphic design. If you read it closely, it appears to be an official communication from the Tories. The legally mandated imprint declares it to be ‘Promoted by Ian Sanderson on behalf of the Conservative Party, both of 30 Millbank, London SW1P 4DP’ — and that would accord with its strongly anti-Ken Livingstone text. If you don’t examine it closely, however, it appears to be an official communication from Labour. The highlighted details are red, and all

Boris unleashes his final weapon: ‘the jaws of death’

Boris Johnson has granted a killer interview to the Sunday Telegraph, where he has unleashed a full-on strike against government. Such a move is calculated to draw a distinction between Boris and the flailing government. The most notable attack is saved for his arch-rival — the chancellor — and the upcoming battle(s) he would face upon re-election: ‘We’ve saved Crossrail from the jaws of death – aka George Osborne….I don’t mind having a row in Whitehall, I don’t mind how much plaster comes off the ceiling, providing it’s done in a robust and sensible way and London gets the money it needs.’ Boris does not go easy on the rest

Celebrating the Tube …

The London Underground is methadone for people with nerd habits. Were it not for its twisty, multi-coloured map, its place in the capital’s history, its tendency to throw up facts such as ‘the QE2 would fit inside North Greenwich station’, we’d be on the hard stuff. The smack of nerd-dom. We’d be on the platform at Crewe with notebooks, taking down numbers, ruining our marriages. As it is we maintain social respectability by obsessing about the Tube. The Tube is sexy in a way that mainline trains aren’t. Even young people, proper trendy young people who know the names of bands, get excited by the Tube. Behold someone who fails

Boris has the greatest global clout

Ni hao. In recent days, Boris, Ken and Brian have all leapt headlong onto Weibo, China’s highly popular version of Twitter. It’s an obvious effort to win the votes of Chinese-speakers living in London. Boris was the first — which, I suppose, says all you want to know about his sense of initiative, brio, élan, and whatever the Chinese word is for ‘mojo’. Ken and Brian both jumped in about two weeks later, around April 21.   Inevitably, because the vast majority of Weibo users live in China, our three London mandarins have ended up attracting followers based in the Middle Kingdom. A look at the mayoral candidates’ individual Weibo

The race for London Mayor gets tighter

It looks as though the London Mayoral election isn’t the foregone conclusion some thought it was. A new YouGov poll for the Evening Standard has the gap between Boris and Ken down to just two points — well within the margin of error. That contrasts with the eight-point lead that Boris had opened up last month: One interesting finding is that, despite all the controversy over his tax affairs, Labour supporters are not turning their backs on Ken. In fact, they seem to be rallying around him. Of those Labour general election voters who express a preference between Ken and Boris, Ken now has the support of 89 per cent.

Siobhan Benita: Boris’ secret weapon

With anti-politics on the rise, there’s one candidate in the May elections who is out to capitalise on the mood. Siobhan Benita, the independent running for London Mayor, has been making increasingly remarkable waves in the run up to 3rd May. She is a technocrat, priding herself on the absence of political views, but adds colour to the race — according to our wine correspondent, Simon Hoggart — whose other employer, the Guardian, has a soft spot for her: ‘Finally she arrived and, while I won’t say that the media swooned, she certainly had an impact. Tall, glossy-haired, elegant in a pencil dress with scarlet jacket, and a diamond wedding

Mayor for Muslims or the rich?

Does Boris not care for poor Londoners? A new question in today’s Evening Standard polling reveals that 40 per cent of voters believe that Boris is the candidate to aid rich Londoners. Ken has also carved his own niche, successfully winning over many Muslin voters — around 20 per cent state he is particularly keen to help them. Here are the full numbers: But such perceptions have made little difference to either candidate’s chances. The headline voting figures remain steady at 53 per cent for Boris and 47 per cent for Ken, despite the above and also the recent tax saga.

Even Labour is giving up on Ken

Three weeks till polling day and Ken’s supporters are getting desperate. The increasingly poor handling of his tax affairs is pushing the mayoralty ever further from his grasp. Last night’s public debate didn’t produce the repeat of that heated lift incident that the crowd was hoping for. The only issue that provoked real anger was that of Ken’s tax affairs. When moderator Clive Anderson turned to Livingstone to ask about his tax arrangements, the crowd exploded with jeering and shouts of ‘champagne socialist’. Ken floundered, unable to brush off the attack. The latest polling from ComRes also suggests that Ken’s campaign is in serious trouble. Boris has now pushed forward

When it comes to personality, Boris will always win 

The fight for London Mayor election has well and truly descended into a clash of personalities. Policies have all but disappeared while candidates trade attacks in the press. The Guardian, duly unimpressed, has written a scathing leader attacking both sides for this strategy: ‘The early days of the London campaign have fallen well short of what the voters are entitled to expect. Almost everything has been focused on the egos, lifestyles and personalities of the two main candidates, Boris Johnson of the Conservatives and Ken Livingstone for Labour. Mr Johnson, arguably a better mayor than some feared but evasive and woolly on the detail as ever, has run a deliberately

Has Osborne fully considered his transparency promise?

Will Osborne come to regret his new-found transparency zeal? This week’s saga from the London Mayoral candidates highlights how financial disclosures can not be all they seem. For Osborne to fulfil his promise, we need full details of not just income and tax returns, but also assets in which they are stakeholders and companies through which they work. Brian Paddick’s release is an excellent model to follow, as opposed to Ken Livingstone’s decision to release just a few summary figures. If Team Miliband happened to be on the ball, there is also a great opportunity to pip the government with a universal full disclosure. This would be following Osborne’s own

James Forsyth

Osborne’s Easter gift to Boris

George Osborne indicating that he is open to him and other ministers having to publish their tax returns is testament to two things. First, the Tory leadership, who know how crucial a Boris victory in London is to the Cameron project regaining momentum, is keen to keep the pressure on Ken Livingstone over his tax affairs. They have no desire to let a row over whether they’ll publish theirs distract attention from the problems of Labour’s mayoral candidate. As Osborne himself stresses in the Telegraph interview, “The reason we are talking about this now is that this is a smokescreen for Ken Livingstone’s tax affairs. Let’s not take the focus

The implications of today’s tax releases

I suspect that three important consequences will flow from the release today of the London mayoral candidates tax returns. First, voters will see that Boris Johnson’s rage at Ken Livingstone on Tuesday as being thoroughly justified. Second, they’ll see that Ken Livingstone, despite all his left-wing rhetoric, is the only one of the four main candidates to have tried to make his affairs tax efficient. The third consequence is that a precedent has now been set that politicians running for office should publish their tax returns. I’ll be shocked if one of the three party leaders doesn’t try and steal a march at the next election by volunteering to publish

How much tax do the mayoral candidates pay?

So, Ken has now released his tax details. He hasn’t gone as far as Lib Dem candidate Brian Paddick, who’s published his full tax returns for the past three years. And there are also questions about what income Ken might not have included in his release. It’s also not clear whether or not he’s including National Insurance contributions, as the other two candidates are. But, based just on the figures each candidate has declared, here are the effective tax rates they’ve been paying: UPDATE: It seems Ken’s campaign is trying to use our chart as proof that he isn’t avoiding tax. But our figures for Ken are simply the amount

Is Ken done for?

Last night, during their television debate, all four London Mayoral candidates declared they would fully disclose their tax returns. This morning, Boris, Brian Paddick and Jenny Jones have duly done so — but Ken? Nothing so far. The Labour team has put out an unpersuasive statement explaining his silence:   ‘We believe household publication is necessary for full disclosure as the question of Ken’s income and his wife’s income and their tax has been central the coverage of this issue. Publication of Ken’s returns alone will not address many of the questions that have been raised. The only way to answer all the questions about this issue and to move