Ken vs. Boris: It's So On

He just needed to capture the "LOL OMFG!!!! KEN DONE A GUFF!!!! ROFL!!!!!!! THE MAN IS A LEGERND I TELL YOU LOL!!!!! I CARNT WAIT 2 SEE HIM RUNNING THE INTIRE CITTY!!! KEN 4 KING!!! LOL!!! LOL!!! LOLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!" voters.

i know someone who voted for paddick? wtf??????????????????

Paddick apparently intends to stand as an MP now, possibly capitalising on his captivating and career-making performance over mayoral elections.

John McDonnell on C4 news just said: 'I'm still hopeful that Ken will hang on, thanks to 2nd preference votes. ... but he'll hang on because he's Ken, not because he's Labour'.

I'm not saying this means he has a chance. I'm just recording what was said.

"After the worse results in 40 years it is intellectually unsustainable for ministers to simply tell the electorate that the government is listening. Prevarication will only lead to a Tory government - what people want is decisive action to change the policies immediately.

If Ken does hang on, it will be as a result of his perceived independence from New Labour and should not be interpreted by Gordon Brown as any vote of confidence in New Labour in London."

BBC R4 suggested that the result wouldn't be known till half midnight suggesting that it is close.

Guardian suggesting it isn't close.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/may/02/london08.london

let me believe a little while longer, although those turnout figures make me fear the worst.

With more than half the votes counted, figures released by the election organisers, London Elects, showed that that the MP for Henley was ahead of Ken Livingstone in eight of the 14 constituencies in the capital. Livingstone was ahead in the remaining six constituencies.

Bur if Johnson's won eight constituencies by 51% to 49%, and Ken's won six by 55% to 45%, doesn't that mean Ken has more votes? How the fuck does this work?

face it guys

http://gizmodo.com/assets/resources/2007/10/dawson-crying.jpg

Guardian calls BJ victory 'remarkable'. Why, given that most people have been predicting it for months, most of the media has backed BJ, his campaign has had more money, and Ken is suffering from general anti-Labour feeling?

'BJ was initially dismissed as clown but is proving them wrong' - BS. The first line of the Labour side was to warn that BJ was dangerous and right-wing. Look at the archives from the relevant period and they'll show this. If anything they have desperately turned to the clown attack in the last week.

labour lost 331 seats and 9 councils, ouch

evening standard has called it for boris - lol

i'm on call this wkend for the bbc homepage and i've been told to expect a call around 1am (though it could be "as early as 8pm" - thanks for the specific info guyz)

Hand, that's like someone coming to fix the washing machine: between 8am and 1pm, or between 1pm and 6m. possibly. if they turn up.

I had two thoughts.

1. Ken has not been seen as, or prominently called, 'soft on crime'. Despite his lefty past etc, no-one has said he has a bad relation with the police (I know this point has been discussed upthread), or that he lets muggers go free because he is a woolly social worker type. somehow, whatever the persona / perception has been, it hasn't been that - unusual, given his roots in / possible continuing attachment to radical principles?

2. Tony Blair (who was with Gordon Brown last night at a Middle East summit! really!) should go and live in Baghdad. Why not? He likes the way things are going over there. It would be interesting to see how long he stayed alive. - Actually, to put it that last way is crude and nasty. I don't want him to die, and don't want him to be a martyr, etc. But it's kind of true that if he thinks Iraq is so much better now, he should try it for a while.

it's exactly like that, pf. And i'm similarly shackled indoors. At least I know the call will come - or I think I do.

pf your Blair proposal reminds me of a similar proposal a friend of mine had for American politicians. Whichever consitituency he or she represented - under these theoretical rules my friend had dreamed up - the policitian would need to live on the poorest block. By law. Given American politicians' contant invocation of Judeo-Christian principles, I don't see how they could really argue with this rule.

Sorry to break up the Baathist Fan Club meet, but both Sky and the Telegraph are calling a Johnson win.

I have pretty much given up hope. However, I didn't realise we'd adopted a system where whoever 'seems' to have won has won. The idea is to work with the facts, not with exit polls or media speculation. You know, count the votes, that sort of crazy madness.

BBC say 80% of the first preference vote is counted and Boris leading in 8 ken in six constituencies.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2352/2459260367_ab3761cfa8.jpg

ES says second preferences will not come into it. I would love for ES, sky and the telegraph to be wrong

every time i move to a city they put in some fucking right wing asshole as mayor

I guess if you've counted 70% of the votes, or whatever, then you can predict the result with extremely high levels of certainty UNLESS you're not actually counting them in a random way - i.e. they just haven't got to Brent or Brixton or Hackney yet.

I assume all this "Boris ahead in 8/9/10 of 14 GLA districts" nonsense - not that it really tells us anything - is because one of the three ballot papers is region-specific, hence that's how they're being tallied at the three counting centres. I don't know whether it's a visual check (stack of paper on blue table) or whether people are leaking tabulated data (which surely isn't allowed).

We don't know which districts Boris is ahead in (though we can guess), whether they're the most populous/have the greatest turnout or by what margin he supposedly leads/trails.

I would love it, LOVE IT, if Boris edged it by 30,000 votes and then saw the Green-Lab pact sweep away his lead on the 2nd-prefs.

ES says second preferences will not come into it.

This has to be BS. Boris by 15-20pts?

some serious over-estimating of the "lol legernd" vote on this thread. if it was that simple labour wouldn't already be toast in the next general election.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/25/The_Smashing_Pumpkins_1979_Mixes.jpg

ES says second preferences will not come into it.
This has to be BS. Boris by 15-20pts?

Either someone at the Evening Standard is innumerate or there's been a completely unpredicted landslide.

the es has been wrong about so many things, it would be nice if this were one of them

*cries*

i think dg's right about the congestion charge, people's relationship to their cars is very personal and very emotional, second only to their relationship to their money

Brian Paddick's second preference vote was for Lindsay German.

Isn't he a Dickens.

and for those reasons if livingstone is booted out, the congestion charge will go down as one of the bravest policies ever pushed through by a mayor anywhere

to do something like the congestion charge, or to increase the time the green man stays lit at crosswalks, or to insist on 50% affordable housing as a target for new residential development etc etc, requires enormous fortitude that can only come from belief in one's principles. because it takes exhausting negotiating sessions over months and months to pass these things. (this is not to even speak of the whole network of local community organisations who work with the city on hundreds of different initiatives, depending on the mayor's priorities). i don't see boris being able to sustain the interest beyond cocktail #2.

xpost it's "lindsey"

After a nailbiting count, Mr Johnson was so far ahead on first-preference votes he could not be caught by Mr Livingstone, even after second preferences were taken into account

Ah, OK. They're not saying it won't go to the 2nd round just that it'll be a formality. Which is still dubious, as there'll be 350-400k Paddick/Berry votes to go through.

i can attest that the lovely emma b cast a vote for siân berry and a second preference for ken, so that's one!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/may/02/london08.livingstone

First London Assembly result:
Bexley & Bromley - Con 52% Lab 15% LD 11%

Now, if they're the sort of margins BJ is winning the outer 'burbs by, it really is all over.

from the rolling guardian blog:

Havering & Redbridge has been added to Boris's victory list.

Where's Havering?

no surprise on either count

labour gain brent and harrow from the tories

The Labour vote in Bexley & Bromley is virtually unchanged, there was just a 12% from UKIP to the Tories.

Brent & Harrow: LABOUR GAIN FROM CONSERVATIVES!

City & East: Labour hold with increased share (collapse of Respect vote?)

Labour hold my constituency ('North-East') as well.

Looking at the details it seems that the minority parties' votes are being squeezed and both Labour and Conservatives have risen.

the city and east constituency is just one long strip of labour seats so no surprise there

After 4 out of 14 constituencies have been counted and verified (are you having a frikking laugh, please? FOUR?!) the votes are as follows:

Boris Johnson: 316, 414 votes
Ken Livingstone: 277, 808 votes.

these blogger types must be gluttons for punishment watching the rolling news all night

So that's a 39,000-vote lead for Boris from four GLA districts, three of which Ken presumably won (City & East, Brent & Harrow, North East). So that leaves 10 to go, and Boris supposedly leads in 7 of them. Oh dear.

Time to redraw the boundaries. Bromley, as any fule no, is Kent.

Boris Johnson: 378,239 votes
Ken Livingstone: 343,770 votes.

34 469 ahead

Closing in, how late will this thing run?

If they were the only two candidates in it then it would be BJ 52.3% KL 47.6%, so still fairly close, maybe, just maybe, still some hope of 2nd choices rescuing Ken?

So what mayor votes in what areas counted?

someone's been at johnson's wiki page