#VoteBike - 2012 London Mayoral elections

I think this is a symptom of the fact we are electing a Mayor. Having so much power in one office must be the reason the Mayoral candidates are often so self-important or egotistic.

It's such a shame that the Mayor tends to overshadow the London assembly which is full of less famous, less egotistic politicians who are experts in their field. Why do we need one all powerful personality?

I'd ditch the Mayoral system, say good bye to Boris and Ken and give the power to the assembly. The same way parliament works and the same way most councils work. If there is no fame or fortune to seek London would be run by people who are there for the right reasons and we wouldnt have to bother with all this personality politics.

That's exactly what Ken wants to do.

No one has moved beyond half truths and hearsay in their criticism of Livingstone on this thread.

+1

Ken, Jen. Jen has already said she can work with Ken a lot better than with Boris. Seems to me voting Green is a wasted vote if it's not going to get serious consideration from the incumbent mayor.

Don't understand all the anti-Livingstone rhetoric here, I seem to remember London infrastucture improving significantly more under Ken than Boris. Isn't he just plumping up his CV before going for Cameron's job? If anything, the one thing that puts me off Livingstone is his tie in with Labour, who are just a useless bag of sh*te at the moment - and this from a lifelong Labour voter until the last GE.

OK, here you are, interviews with the candidates just on cycling, from Londoners on Bikes.

Jenny Jones:

http://vimeo.com/41191318

Ken Livingstone:

http://vimeo.com/41116222

Londoners on Bikes will have Brian Paddick tonight, as they are speaking to him before The Times/Sustrans hustings, and they are hoping that they can manage to speak to Boris Johnson afterwards. His campaign team have suggested that they can talk to him then, but haven't yet confirmed. I'll add those two once they are up.

I found these far more interesting than the hustings have been. It's nice to see people talking policy properly for once, and around things that they can actually do!

Also, this page is interesting: http://www.londonersonbikes.org.uk/whats_missing

Strange that in his prior eight years all Livingston managed was to screw things up and create division and tensions between Londoners. Why would he be any different now?

Labour should have put forward a fresh candidate. Livingston should have gone off to whatever tax haven took his fancy and sat there on the beach counting his filthy lucre.

I'm not going to disagree, but we've now go to deal with what we've been offered.

I'm all in favour of telling people that RON (ReOpen Nominations) should be available at all elections, and that spoilt ballot papers are counted.

I'd love to see a 'don't feel any of these represent you? Spoil your paper!' style of campaign appear. I've discussed it with a few people, and might give it a try at some point, but that's not whats been going down this time.

The mayoral elections are a bit unique in the way that it seems a single issue can be pushed at the candidates. It's interesting to see how they have been shifting on cycle policy, even over just the last week.

Strange that in his prior eight years all Livingston managed was to screw things up and create division and tensions between Londoners. Why would he be any different now?

Labour should have put forward a fresh candidate. Livingston should have gone off to whatever tax haven took his fancy and sat there on the beach counting his filthy lucre.

You really have an irrational hatred of Ken.

Jenny Jones seems the most competent to do the job so will be getting my first vote. whenever ive seen any debate she's always been very professional and refused to get into the nonsense of dirty tricks and always wants to discuss policy.
I'm becoming increasingly convinced that that London Mayor should be apolitical so will probably vote for independant candidate for 2nd vote (although slightly concerned about the shodowy prescence of Gus O'donnel in the back ground).

Sick of Boris and Ken's tit-for-tat tactics in the press so they can both fuck themselves.

Brian Paddick is a one trick pony who only thinks about policing.

bullwinkle - this is Londoners on Bikes take on that, http://www.londonersonbikes.org.uk/isn_t_a_vote_for_the_greens_a_wasted_vote

Nice to see optimistic people out there though :)

Two introductory points.

I would never vote for Johnson or Paddick.

That said, I cannot vote for Livingston.

Livingston is decisive.

That, indeed, he is. Interesting typo. :)

He stood against the official Labout candidate 12 years ago thus turning his back on the party which he purports to follow.

You do remember what actually happened, don't you?

While Livingstone reneged on his promise not to stand as an independent if he didn't get the party nomination, he made that promise before Blair reneged on his promise to have a 'one member, one vote' ballot. Blair then decided to stitch him up with an 'electoral college' system. In the ballot, Livingstone got more individual votes than Dobson, but the electoral college votes of MPs were more heavily weighted and Dobson scraped in.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Livingstone#First_mayoral_term:_2000-2004

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/480477.stm

Note also this peculiarity:

The former health secretary currently trails the independent candidate, Mr Livingstone, by around 40 points in the polls and there has been much media speculation that the prime minister had been keen to distance himself from what looks like a Labour defeat.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk_politics/2000/london_mayor/703709.stm

So where did all those people come from who suddenly gave an independent candidate a 40-point lead over the Labour candidate?

Now, I hope you'll forgive me for quoting the Socialist Worker, but it's the first source I found with stats from Labour's ballot (and I can only assume that the stats given are correct):

"I DID very well in the ballot of Labour Party members in London." That was Frank Dobson's amazing claim after it was announced that he had beaten Ken Livingstone to become Labour's candidate for mayor of London. Livingstone did not lose the election. He was robbed. If the vote had been conducted using one member one vote (OMOV), the system Tony Blair claims to prefer, Livingstone would have easily won. He won an estimated 74,646 votes in all three sections, compared to 22,275 for Dobson and 11,185 for Jackson. The election was a stitch-up from start to finish. The electoral college was divided into three sections, each worth just over 33 percent of the vote. The election was rigged, allowing Dobson to scrape home with 51.3 percent. Livingstone came second with 48.7 percent.

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/archive/1685/sw168512.htm

Basically, the selection of Frank Dobson was a political scandal into which this decent man was dragged quite against his will. He came under heavy political pressure to stand despite not wanting to stand at all.

Most recently he campaigned against an official Labour candidate in the Tower Hamlets election.
I don't know much about what happened there, so I won't defend him on that, but I'd be surprised if he didn't have his reasons.

I do not think that the Labour Party should support him. I most certainly won't.

His various antisemetic rants, however couched as "jokes", are intolerable.

He is dismissive of the very type of person that he himself is. He deplores middle class white people and excludes them at every turn. His is a London for the marginalised not a ondon for all Londoners. I believe strongly that every minority must be embraced because I believe that every individual must be embraced. Livingston does not. He divides. He rejects middle class white people (and Jewish people and probably a few other categories of people) and just embraces those that he wishes to embrace. The pick and mix of harmony.

Livingston is, in reality, just about himself and he will harm anyone, harm London, to promote himself.
Where on Earth do you get the idea that Livingstone 'deplores white middle-class people'?

How could Livingstone possibly only do something for 'the marginalised' when his main powers as mayor were/would be in transport, planning, and policing? Can you name one single transport, planning, and policing policy of his two mayoral terms which unfairly favoured 'the marginalised' over white middle-class people?

I really don't know where all of this comes from other than personal dislike--are you relying mainly about the anecdote about Livingstone you once told me?

As for 'all about himself', Livingstone is always quite clear that he wants to 'run things'. He often overtly and publicly claims that he is good at 'running things'. All I can see is evidence of a strong drive and will to govern. I don't think anyone has ever really successfully attacked him on that--it would seem to be part any mayor's job description. He's also a well-documented workaholic with a strong focus on policy and strategy. Boris Johnson is clearly far more 'about himself', albeit without evidence of any will or drive to govern.

NB I have no brief to defend Livingstone and I disagree with a number of his policies. I just find many of the attacks on him unfair and unfounded, and I don't want an election to be based only on emotion, but more on facts and policies.

You really have an irrational hatred of Ken.
Don't worry. I despise Johnson and Paddicl with equal venom.

Hate is an emotion and therefore necessarily irrational.

His various antisemetic rants, however couched as "jokes", are intolerable.

I'll concede he may rant, but disagree with everything else in that sentence. I'll start with the incident transcribed on [ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Livingstone[/ame]'s Wikipedia page. Nothing he said implied he is opposed to Jews in general. He attacks the behaviour of one particular reporter, initially on the basis of the newspaper she represents and in ignorance of her race.

The only way i can understand that offence can be taken is if merely mentioning Nazis in the presence of Jews is like using the N word if you're not black. But to me they are almost opposite. Not using the N word is about denying that skin colour could ever possibly be connected with someone's worth as a person. Whereas the lesson of the Nazis is that a culture of picking on differences and mentally separating groups of people off as 'not like me', and then 'less human than me' can lead to a lot of normal human beings supporting, or at least permitting, some truly terrible things. And that is something we should all keep in mind and guard against.

I'd generally avoid mentioning Nazi's in front of Jews because the history is so painful and i wouldn't want to trivialise that pain, and because it's such overblown and desperate rhetoric, but i don't think that mentioning nazi's to people who happen to be Jews is racist.

I've read through
http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/65426/the-letter-ed-miliband-jewish-labour-supporters
http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/65425/ken-livingstone-jews-wont-vote-labour-because-they-are-rich
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/former-london-mayor-forced-to-apologize-over-controversial-remarks-to-jewish-activists-1.421551
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/ken-livingstone-tries-and-not-entirely-succeeds-to-make-up-with-london-s-jews-1.426695
and not been able to find anything to justify all the excitement. I think perhaps the worst bit is from the first link:

At various points in the discussion Ken used the words Zionist, Jewish and Israeli, interchangeably, as if they meant the same, and did so in a pejorative manner. These words are not interchangeable and to do so is highly offensive, particularly when repeated over and again as was done. For example, when discussing Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi's extreme views on homosexuality, Ken said "one would expect the same views on homosexuality from extreme Christians, Muslims and Israelis" and using the word "Zionist" as an adjectival negative to criticise much more widely than what can be attributed to the ideology of Zionism. He also stated "I am not against Israel, I am against Zionists", which we also find impossible.
But even here i'm confused as to what is impossible about "I am not against Israel, I am against Zionists". It seems to me they are different things, and Zionism is incompatible with the 2-state solution he supports.

Or take this article: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jenniferlipman/100147208/as-jewish-labour-supporter-i-cant-back-ken-livingstone/. The only meat i could find in it was this paragraph:

It's not about anti-Semitism. It's about an entire community feeling uncomfortable in a supposedly inclusive city, their concerns ignored because their political support isn't considered important. It's about a mayor who is unrepentant about his friendship with a radical Islamic cleric, and doesn't see how his cozying up to extremists jars with his claim of a city where "different communities live side by side peacefully".
Which boils down to admiting that she doesn't like Ken because he's more interested in reaching out to other groups for support than hers. You could argue that's misguided, but calling it antisemetic is as overblow and desperate as comparing an annoying jounalist to nazis.

Hate is an emotion and therefore necessarily irrational.

There are perfectly rational fears, such as a fear of falling off a 100 foot cliff. There are also irrational fears, such as fear of mice. Reason is not necessarily incompatible with emotions. Sometimes the two go together in perfect harmony.

Boris has had an absolute shocker at the The Times cycling hustings.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/cyclesafety/article3399886.ece

Would you like to expand your opaque assertion into an argument that can be followed?

Opaque indeed, sorry. I wasn't actually making any assertions I don't think.. His pet project would have cost me a year's supply of food at the time that's all, and I would have had to get a proper job as well. I think that's enough to engender strong feelings in anyone. I was too knackered to think about ideologies at that time.. To redress the balance, there's no way I could consider voting for Johnson simply for his comment on E & C roundabout...
Jenny Jones said this morning that Ken would appoint her 'Supreme Commander' of cycling if he was elected.. She seems happy with that. Something about the phrase makes me uneasy though..

Most recently he campaigned against an official Labour candidate in the Tower Hamlets election.

Not only that, but you should see the record of the cunt he did support.
One of the most blatant, dangerous crooks in politics today, he was expelled from the Labour party for such practices as inventing hundreds of new members to get his schemes and IFE mates voted in.

You talk of being expelled from new labour as if it's a bad thing.

Not only that, but you should see the record of the cunt he did support.
One of the most blatant, dangerous crooks in politics today, he was expelled from the Labour party for such practices as inventing hundreds of new members to get his schemes and IFE mates voted in.

And a homophobic twerp to boot. Livingston's judgement in backing him has to be questioned.

Why have Labour put forward such an appalling candidate?

I have voted Labour since local government elections in 1976. Now I am obliged to vote for another party. I may have become a floating voter.

Mind you, I could never vote Tory or for those Liberal twerps.

What do you reckon concerning the content of my post up there, Clive?

Boris has had an absolute shocker at the The Times cycling hustings.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/cyclesafety/article3399886.ece

He must have been advised that the opinion of the audience in the room mattered less than what happened outside of the media bubble?

Well, maybe he just lost his rag, but there are certain parts of the audience with whom that would have played well.

I'm agreeing with cliveo.

Jenny Jones, the taxi lady.

Hey Boris is right IMO the lycra clad all the gear and riding like idiots.

Oh and any one that votes Lib Dem is delusional as they are in power now and are there and turning against what they pledged.

What do you reckon concerning the content of my post up there, Clive?
dunno

Probably tl;dr

Ok so I've gone back and read it now. Ity was long.

First, I don't know whether the SWP are correct or not. Perhaps he has reason to feel agrieved but he should have dealt with that within the Labour Party and not fought against the Labour candidate. He cannot pick and choose when he should support the party and when he should stand outside it.

He is devisive. I apologise for my iPad's spell check and my fat fingers.

He does not want white middle class people to have any role in London. He sees no electoral base among them. He is interested only in being elected and gaining power. I would be interested if you could find one statement by him that in any way indicated a willingness to allow the white middle class to feel part of London.

Indeed, all you will find is against the socio economic and ethnic group into which I was born. It was not my choice to be white or middle class. I believe that I have as much right to live in London as anyone else. Not more but the same. You will find nothing from Livingston supporting this. Instead he says that people are "too rich to support Labour".

Another made-up quote.