Ken vs. Boris: It's So On

Why isn't Phil the Godhead Scouser with the megaphone running for Mayor?

Oyster cards only cost £3 or something these days, don't they? Tourists aren't priced out of getting them.

I agree that the tube is still outrageously priced compared with other major capital cities - but at least it's possible to get a bus these days with a decent chance of getting to wherever you're going on time. The traffic before the congestion charge was pretty unbelievable. I used to get the 137 home and sometimes it would take an hour just to get from Marble Arch to Hyde Park Corner.

Whereas now it can take an hour just to get from Sloane Square to Chelsea Bridge!

big question re where the media's leading over the next two years is: on friday will the story be 'ken pulls it back from the brink' or 'labour demolished countrywide'? i think both of those things will happen, but in terms of creating a narrative, it will be interesting to see where the commentary goes.

Can't wait to see cheap tube fares under Johnson. Or see him dealing with the RMT. I would love to be in that meeting.

xps

fuck a travelcard being nearly £6 off-peak, this is not progress

Bariquit, the Dr Morbius of london politics

and movies

and, uh, just life in general

So, what's the greatest margin Ken can lose the first ballot by and still get in on 2nd-choice votes? He'll surely get 60%+ of Paddick voters and 70%+ of Berry voters, I would think? Enough to overturn a four-point deficit, maybe? I guess Boris will hoover up the BeeEnPee alternates.

I thought Paddick votes broke down more in favour of Johnson?

Mike: you mean Pamela's giving 30% of her vote to someone else?

I agree with what Polly Toynbee says in her column:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/29/london08.boris
It moved me, and I wrote to tell her so, and that I will be happy to vote Labour on Thursday.

The only thing I don't agree with, in her largely spot-on commentary, is the use of the word 'effete' to describe BJ. I thought it had to do with effeminacy, and I actually think BJ is macho and hideously aggressive. Looking in a dictionary, I see that it apparently means 'exhausted, lacking vigour, barren'. I don't think BJ is that either. So I think she chose the wrong word, when she perhaps meant to convey 'upper-class / out of touch' or the like.

Otherwise, I think that it is a tremendous column.

I thought Paddick votes broke down more in favour of Johnson?

Yes, Liberals would prefer a Tory mayor

Can't wait to see cheap tube fares under Johnson. Or see him dealing with the RMT. I would love to be in that meeting.

I would love to be there too. I get a free tube pass soon coz of the silver lining (for me) of the Metronet fuck up.

ok we get it (xp)

I thought Paddick votes broke down more in favour of Johnson?

Oh really? I haven't seen any polls on that. Damn, I'm still living in some kind of SDP past, probably. I suspect the 2nd-choice votes aren't going that differently proportioned to the 1st-choice votes then.

With all these widely-differing polls around, are pollsters working with ludicrously small samples or something? Can't believe it's this volatile so close to election day. Maybe it's the push-pull of Standard smears vs dawning-realisation-it's-Boris.

Stop Boris. Stop London Becoming LOLdon.

He has reinvented himself to suit London's needs. The City, to its own surprise, responds positively to him, giving him much credit for seeing off Frankfurt as a competitor and even trouncing New York.

i was very moved by this, pinefox. i asked keir hardie and he agreed.

Dave Hill also gives reasons to vote Labour, though he is too generous to the Tory really:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/dave_hill/2008/04/the_london_list.html

What year is your SDP past, Mike -- 1982 or so? I think they were past their electoral peak by 15 May 1985.

am or pm?

I don't think we need to bother with the latest propaganda issued by Millbank apparatchik Toynbee.

Ah, yes, ILM's reality-challenging "Polly Toynbee is a Blairite" thing, which requires you to either a) not know who she is, b) not know who Tony Blair is, or c) be really fucking thick.

are you off your meds?

toynbee : labour :: gilligan : livingstone

lol i mean gilligan : johnson

Dr Kelly died so that Gilligan might live.

Hasn't Toynbee always been rather more of a Brownite?(Though she must have a tremendously powerful microscope)

And there is no divergence of views within the Labour party?

Is Livingstone a Blairite too?

Is John Mcdonnell (sp?) a Blairite?

xpost

She was Brown's John the Baptist, before she realized along with everyone else that Brown wasn't quite Jesus

And there is no divergence of views within the Labour party?

I borrowed Toynbee's microscope....and I saw some!

I don't recall either Livingstone or McDonnell living in a Clapham Park slum for like one night then working at United Biscuits for approx. half an hour then writing a book about the poverty of the nation with a ten-page preface about her five-storey house across the road.

It's a good job no one is required to vote for Polly Toynbee then.

For the time being.

laxalt otm

classic toynbee here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/feb/26/iraq.foreignpolicy2

I think people get her mixed up with Jackie Ashley, too.

I'm not saying you're not allowed to dislike despise her, Marcello. I'm just saying it's a little, tiny bit, er, moronic, to pretend that just because someone supports the Labour party they are a Blairite, or even a Brownite (whatever that means - microscope point well taken).

But back to Ken/Boris ... sorry.

Fuck off moron, is that good enough for you?

Is this the day to say no? No to what? Yet if not now, then when?

Is this off the new Elbow album?

This is very boring.

The first one wasn't bad though.

column after column by toynbee is as close to actual party literature as you could possibly get. she doesn't just support the party: she supports the leadership. differences between blair and brown were largely to do with power and presentation; ideologically you could barely get a rizla paper between them. as p-toyn has basically acknowledged -- that the myth of brown as 'the real deal' compared with blair built up over those years of feuding was bollocks.

xpost yes this is boring

I like Polly Toynbee. I think that she (experimentally / journalistically) lived on low wages for longer than has been suggested. She has old roots in the feminist movement. She is different from, and better than, Jackie Ashley, as I have said before. I think she is a good progressive woman.

I was thinking about what it will be, or would be, like to have BJ as mayor. Every time his name is mentioned or his face appears on TV, as it often will, I will have to turn off. Stuff bearing that face will be stuffed into my letterbox every fortnight. He will constantly pop up to speak for London. It will be difficult to bear; part of me will have to shut down to shut it out.

I like Polly Toynbee. I think that she (experimentally / journalistically) lived on low wages for longer than has been suggested.

I haven't taken her seriously since

Those old midthread blues again.

PT is a bore with a famous dad and therefore good connections. She is canting retrogression writ large.

If BJ becomes Mayor will the last person to leave London please etc.

Stuff bearing that face will be stuffed into my letterbox every fortnight.

it will be interesting to see if he does continue with those godawful and wasteful newsletters.

i think toynbee sent her kids to private school? kind of lame given her defence of the quality of education under new lab.

yeah at least abbott had the decency to keep slagging it off

I was thinking about what it will be, or would be, like to have BJ as mayor. Every time his name is mentioned or his face appears on TV, as it often will, I will have to turn off. Stuff bearing that face will be stuffed into my letterbox every fortnight. He will constantly pop up to speak for London. It will be difficult to bear; part of me will have to shut down to shut it out.

Unfortunately, that is exactly how lots of people feel about Livingstone, and why Boris is doing as well as he is.

George Orwell, that clown, I've never taken any of his books seriously since he pretended to be a tramp.

I'm not a big fan of ms toynbee, as usual though, the hateful reader comments posted after her piece make me feel more sympathetic to her, even though I don't really want to. They also make me want to emigrate.

Yes, that's really comparing like with like! (xp)

If Orwell had been Chaplin, Polly Toynbee would be

Fiona Kennedy
COMEDIAN