Ken vs. Boris: It's So On

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.

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.

You could be right, but it's worth noting "WE ARE NOT LONDON-CENTRIC" is a huge huge drummed into your brain mantra in the BBC at the moment.

There was a q at my polling station and weirdly the two people in front of me both work in my office. Fancy.

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.

-- Matt DC, Thursday, 1 May 2008 21:22

Yeah as if Boris bloody Johnson would run for mayor. lol London, you got punk'd!!

Says Livingstone as the Rick Astley classic played at "ballot stations" around the capital: "Haha... just a bit of a laugh there guys, we're not actually having any elections. Brezhnev didn't need 'em, neither do I."

Jol out.

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.

I have to combat Chingford I guess.

lol @ election rickrolling!

No results at all so far then.

Fuckwit Radio 2 DJ in jeans describing Rochdale as a classic Lib Dem/Conservative swing council then swiftly moving on to pretty much invisible visual gags about Bean/Stalin.

Jesus, this is awkward. If this had an audience it would be like a really bad Brit Awards.

They've nicked the Boris caricature out of Private Eye, then?

'Boris's dad, Dave from Blur and Michael Portillo'

COMING UP

BBC North appears to be leading with Barnsley possibly slipping from Labour control...

Big turnouts in inner London too according to Nick thingy.

I love this polling guy.

He has such a beautiful accent.

Seriously. Fucking jeans. What a tosser.

Erm... is the BBC in Not-Leeds running ahead of the BBC in Leeds, then? I am currently looking at Jeremy Vine wafting near a map.

someone (nick thingie?) just called ken livingstone "ken loving"?

the map guy is like.. STANDING IN THE ZODIAC

Re: jeans - I could probably take an acoustic session from British Sea Power over Tessa Jowell talking about anything at all.

so is there no mayoral news? if this was the united states they would have called it for somebody hours ago

jowell out

Yeah, hardly anything on the BBC site.