Ken vs. Boris: It's So On

DC, if anyone you know feels that way ... well ... how did you get friends like that in the first place?

Would it be justified to go through my Facebook friends list and indiscriminately defriend everyone whose status update reads 'Vote Boris' or suchlike?

no. i might do the same thing. several people on mine (hello at least two posters on this thread) are sporting some violently anti-boris ones. so am i.

I suspect some of mine are pro-Boris so I'm trying to goad them into revealing themselves and defriending me

anti-boris status updates: 6 (7 including self).

pro-boris: none.

that's reassuring.

Think I'm 5-0, not sure about this fuckin clown though:

Lou1s Jagger
YAAAAH BORIS YAAAAH.
Updated about a minute ago

Does facebook have an application where you can send painful electric shocks through a user's mouse yet?

I stopped bothering with the anti-Boris count when it got to 20, pro-Boris count is 9 or 10. The pro-Borisers are all people I went to school with - when you consider my school was about 90% working class kids from around Lewisham, I worry what this might say about a possible flight of working class votes to the Tories.

This is probably not a solid bedrock from which to begin making statistical projections, admittedly.

essex is our texas <--- jacques perreti on the barrymore doc last night

essex, brrrrr

lol easy target

If anyone on my fbk was pro-BJ I would cut them off.

I was just thinking about the apparent difference between me and DC earlier. Really, I think we agree. He said: it will be bad if BJ gets in and succeeds, rather than buffoonishly fails. I agree. My expectation is that he *will* succeed - on his own terms, not mine (or DC's?). So has W, so did Maggie, etc - these people are not considered failures by their own side, but heroes. I think BJ will be hailed as doing very well the things he wants to do - a mixture of reactionary things, cutting back progressive things, sucking up to certain interests, and ego-tripping.

I think that the 'word' 'LOL' is nowadays misused on ilx (probably elsewhere) - surely you should save it for things that actually make you laugh? Not just for things that are silly, misguided, mildly ironic or whatever.

Oh well.

When ilx started we didn't have terms like that, and most people wrote posts in paragraphs; nowadays a great many are one word or one short line. ilx has changed; perhaps other things have changed too.

don't worry guys, i've single handedly fucked up the pro-boris campaign. when they were handing out boris badges,they were like 'vote boris on 1st may' and i was like "OK!" and took a badge, but really i wasn't going to, so they've one fewer badge to give out, PLUS they're probably all chillaxing now thinking THEY HAVE MY VOTE, BUT THEY DON'T. MWAHAHAHHA

The suburbs shouldn't have been given the vote. Or there should have been two separate elections and they could have had all the Toryism they want and leave the city to be governed as it should be.

ken c, striking a blow for the common man.

don't worry guys, i've single handedly fucked up the pro-boris campaign

i'm sure i've regaled you with the wonderful story of how a couple of dudes from my school volunteered to do some campaigning for a tory candidate in blackpool in the early 1990s.

they drove around town for a couple of hours in a vauxhall nova plastered with VOTE TORY posters, shouting: "YOU ARE ALL CUNTS! WE ARE TORIES AND WE BUGGER BABIES! FUCK YOU ALL!" and so on.

happy days.

Normal for Blackpool, though.

i'd vote for a candidate with that honesty tho

Oh well, if we wake up tomorrow and it's 1958, we'll know whose fault it was and we'll hunt them out.

Pinefox - I'm glad you agree we agree. I wonder how serious a mess Boris (or any Mayor really) can actually make of London before their powers are curbed by central government. Ken has had additional powers given to him over the years as the govt got more comfortable with him being there - can Labour get away with narrowing Boris's remit without causing a storm?

Of course, there's a bad organising type of mess, and there's the sort of mess where you say such embarassing things that your party leadership goes into blind panic. I suspect the latter is more likely.

When ilx started we didn't have terms like that, and most people wrote posts in paragraphs; nowadays a great many are one word or one short line. ilx has changed; perhaps other things have changed too.

It used to be all fields around London too. Increasing population, urbanisation, etc...like London, like ILx.

we used to bury the dead where Ask Chaki! stands now

maybe London has to take a hit for the team? ie if ken wins, it may not help labour back on a national level, but w Boris as mayor fuxoring it up, :-/

Are the undead rising up in Ask Chaki? (xpost)

the bile is rising certainly

The Primaries thread has started up again. We need new things to say...

Any exit polls on this?

I was about to start a 'Jim vs Maggie: It's So On' thread in the style of Kennedy assassination thread from a few months back, but thought it would just be too depressing.

i'm sure we'll all be 'liveblogging' the election show later

I only have one pro-Boris update on my Facebook friends, but since that guy has actually stood for election as a Tory, not surprising. And he doesn't live in London anyway. But also only 1 pro-Ken. So statistically not far off current polls.

xpost * 1000

I've got one for Paddick as well amid all the furore and I immediately though 'awww bless', which I suspect was not the effect she was aiming for.

maybe London has to take a hit for the team? ie if ken wins, it may not help labour back on a national level, but w Boris as mayor fuxoring it up, :-/

will surely make no real difference either way to the general election

i'm grasping at straws in the event of bad.

don't grasp at straws. grasp at BIG STICKS WITH NAILS THROUGH THE END OF THEM.

I just don't see how anyone could vote for Boris Johnson and have any self-respect.

I'm starting to repeat myself.

i think people underestimate the unpopularity of the congestion charge

Judging by the level of coverage this is getting on the BBC website, I think the visibility of the London Mayor outside London isn't exactly great, unless there's a terrorist attack or we win another major sporting tournament or something. Is that right? So an almighty cock-up by Boris may not make much of a difference to the Tories unless he starts a war with Manchester or something.

Also, if Ken wins, and Labour do badly everywhere else, the national headlines will read 'LABOUR TROUNCED IN LOCAL ELECTIONS' with 'Ken Livingstone squeaked back in in London' in the second paragraph somewhere.

Was I mis-hearing the Beeb this morning saying that the Election show tonight is being co-hosted by Emily Eavis with some political blogging chums of hers, as well as a Dimblebore?

My work is pretty much all pro-Boris except me as far as I can see.

I'm not feeling hopeful.

When I lived in Newcastle I can't remember hearing about the London Mayor at all really beyond calls for Newcastle/North East to have someone with similar powers.

No-one at my work has even mentioned the election. However, all the people who sit around me live outside London, so I guess it's not important to them.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3292/2427312677_8d8fc07c39.jpg

Uncomfortable expression or what?

Today's voting music was 'Old Teenagers' by Atilla the Stockbroker in honour of LOL BORIS LEGEREND AND HIS FACEBOOK MORONS.

Judging by the level of coverage this is getting on the BBC website, I think the visibility of the London Mayor outside London isn't exactly great, unless there's a terrorist attack or we win another major sporting tournament or something. Is that right? So an almighty cock-up by Boris may not make much of a difference to the Tories unless he starts a war with Manchester or something.

Yup. No one outside London gives a shit about any of this, which is both good and bad, should Boris win.

*waves cheerily from glasgow*

(not that i'm particularly representative of anything, of course!)

My non-London friends without doubt give more of a shit about this than my London ones. My sister was just about to not vote at all because "well we'd have to take the kids". (Don't worry, gf, she felt my boot.)

heheheheheh. good work. (and a fine status update, too, incidentally.)

I voted for Ken again, same as in 2004, and same as I would have done in 2000 if I hadn't been disenfranchised by moving house too often to be able to register.

Back upthread:
Waltham Forest - Con
-- Matt DC, Tuesday, 29 April 2008 12:16 (2 days ago)

I'd be surprised if it isn't Labour. I'm pretty sure Walthamstow and Leyton and probably Leytonstone would be Labour and only Chingford would be Tory.

Perhaps, I get a bit hazy out there.

I voted, in the end. On of the strangest things about the voting proces, for me, is that I'm still registered at my parents' house, and I end up voting in the hall at my old primary school. In the infants' school, where I was from age 5-7 or something. The fact that I still go in there every couple of years to do my democratic duty as an adult nearing 30 means the act of voting resonates with me in ways it probably doesn't with many others.

Also, there was music playing at low volume on a stereo when we came in. I didn't know what it was until the chorus kicked in, as I was in the voting booth. Then I realised it was Never Gonna Give You Up, and felt cheated, like I'd been rickrolled at the ballot box.