Ken vs. Boris: It's So On

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

This is still boring.

Bring on PC Ploddick

What do you mean bring me on? Did RED KEN put you up to this? Eh? Eh?

Ok, what's the population split between the inner and outer boroughs. Assuming Johnson trounces Livingstone in the suburbs, and Ken wins convincingly in inner London, who wins?

It mathematically works out at roughly 50/50.

lol paddick is a bent copper am i right?

I agree with Pashmina about people who write posts on the Guardian site. It seems like a lot of them are scumbags, and I guess that some of them are probably part of an orchestrated right-wing campaign, though I have no evidence for that; it just seems likely. It's a pity the Guardian has opened this box; I don't now see how they can close it.

By closing, since most of their writers basically agree with them?

i liked toynbee's 'if you're going to post snark, at least use your real name and not Cockmonkey74 or whatever' rant on CIF

If Boris wins, I say we retreat and build the barricades on the bridges and above circle line. NON PASSARAN!

Bev Bevan type threats will be useless I suppose?

i couldn't find the comments on toynbee -- but one of the orchestrated right-wing campaigners on the comments box for a similar puff-piece by martin jacques raised the issue of ken's support for ian blair over menezes. they'll do anything to discredit him, the swine.

'if you're going to post snark, at least use your real name and not Cockmonkey74 or whatever so we can FIND YOU and MAKE YOU SLEEP WITH BEV BEVAN'

It mathematically works out at roughly 50/50.

But are people assuming higher turnout in the suburbs?

Does anyone live in outer London? Round my way (Harringay) we have had v little campaigning from anyone (one Ken, one Boris, two lib dem local council leaflets, presumably because it's so safe Labour, but a mate who lives in Kingston says they've been flooded with Lib Dem and Tory stuff. Why hasn't Labour been focussing on places like that, or has it, or again,are they not bothering because there is no hope?

Average outer London turnout at the last mayoral election was approx. 45% so presumably (and maybe fatally) Labour are assuming that the outcrops are not really worth bothering with.

Demographically harringey counts as 'inner-london'

lol rly?

damn london is big!

Zone 2!

That's inner, innit?

the only thing that's really raised my bile against ken in the past few years is his response to the menezes thing - it was just knee-jerk blue wall of silence crap of the first order

it seems like ALL mayors have this pure, unshakeable allegiance to their police departments though, which is maybe not so strange but also not very admirable and i wonder if they realize how bad it makes them look

harrinGAY is not inner london

It doesn't matter! There isn't some invisible ring beyond which everyone automatically becomes a Tory shitbag.

It is more a case of harringey having large working clas white and non white populations, more people in social housing higher unemployment that makes it similar to hackney or camden rather than Merton.

There isn't some invisible ring beyond which everyone automatically becomes a Tory shitbag.

it's called the A406

In any case it's when you get out into places like Bromley and Twickenham that you're in real Tory heartland, I wouldn't say it's even a 50:50 split. Even if those boroughs are massive they're also less densely populated even if there is higher turnout.

Haha Twickenham MP is Vincent Cable I should have bothered to check that.

Inner London boroughs, according to the Office of National Statistics:

Camden
Hackney
Hammersmith and Fulham
Haringey
Islington
Kensington and Chelsea
Lambeth
Lewisham
Newham
Southwark
Tower Hamlets
Wandsworth
City of Westminster

fwiw my guess about mayors and their PDs is that the police know a bunch of stuff about the mayor that nobody else knows

So, the spending limit was £420,000 - that's really not a lot for such a big electorate. No wonder they're not bothering in areas they think they'll lose.

the Office of National Statistics can go eat a dick, newham FFS

fwiw my guess about mayors and their PDs is that the police know a bunch of stuff about the mayor that nobody else knows

-- Tracer Hand, Tuesday, April 29, 2008 12:49 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

http://www.hbo.com/thewire/img/castcrew/character_season04/burrell.jpg

Johnson on Toynbee.

She incarnates all the nannying, high-taxing, high-spending schoolmarminess of Blair's Britain... She is the high priestess of our paranoid, mollycoddled, risk-averse, airbagged, booster-seated culture of political correctness and 'elf'n'safety fascism.

...because airbags and booster seats are such bad ideas. This is the exact reason he's such a stupid twat. Playing to the gallery, not thinking for one fucking second of the consequences of his stupid soundbites. He's just not a fucking serious person, which is fine as long as you don't run a fucking city!

He's going to win isn't he?

Will fall to Labour:

Camden
Hackney
Haringey
Islington (probably)
Lambeth
Lewisham
Newham
Southwark
Tower Hamlets

Vulnerable to the LibDems:

Islington

True blue

Hammersmith and Fulham
City of Westminster
Kensington and Chelsea
Wandsworth these days?

For local government fact fans, the London Government Act of 1963 included Greenwich, but excluded Haringey and Newham. So pick your definition.

In demographic and political terms, Haringey feels very similar to Hackney.

xpost

I'm still kind of optimistic that he won't - I can see a lot of wavering voters not ticking that box at the last minute.

He's going to win isn't he?

No, Ken is

There's also a red band running out towards places like Brent and Dagenham and there'll be a ding-dong between the LibDems and the Tories in the South West. The bits on the fringes of Kent and Essex will fall to Boris.

wish i could vote :/

There are a number of polling cards lying around unclaimed in my hallway.

http://www.bettingpro.com/images/17633_next-mayor.bmp