Ken vs. Boris: It's So On

I suspect the people who voted for her were not thinking "yeah Labour's done well but let's try this bird, what the hell".

"No amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin."
http://i.thisislondon.co.uk/i/pix/2008/04/01a_28_Borisfront_415x275.jpg
Not only that - they look like a pair of gormless sixth formers.

I just went out to vote. The streets made me think of the GLC, of the passing years, of all that has happened, the municipal and suburban world I have known. The polling station with its quiet responsibility, its temporary moral seriousness. The sense of civic virtue in those who staff it. I took my time making the crosses, fearful of somehow getting it wrong. I placed a cross next to Ken Livingstone's name - then had to check repeatedly that I had got it right, as though constantly checking I hadn't left my keys behind. I voted Green second, because I like her and them; I know it won't count, but hope that they will know how many second votes they got. For London member, Green; for local member, Labour.

... It all moved me, voting. And I looked around the streets and thought, everyone else is doing it too - people in London surely care about this election. Perhaps this is, in some technical sense, Ken Livingstone's last day as Mayor - or perhaps that has even already gone. I am grateful to him, for his political efforts since I was a little boy.

I suspect the people who voted for her were not thinking "yeah Labour's done well but let's try this bird, what the hell".

-- Matt DC

why can't that work with sian berry

Just saw Mike on the Wallasey Cathedral. Bafflingly brilliant, as always.

friends voting for boris is the worst :(

"No amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin."

Of course, Bevan's opinion of Labour in power was only one step above the Tory party.

people in London surely care about this election

I wasn't exactly fighting thru the crowds on my way to the polling station this morning.

Have you, or anyone outside South Africa post-apartheid, ever fought through crowds to get to a polling station?

I believe that people in London care.

Though I wish more of them felt the way I do.

I believe for every drop of rain that falls a flower grows.

YouGov has it, at final polling, as Johnson 53 Livingstone 47. Which, sadly, sounds about right.

"I believe for every drop of rain that falls someone gets wet" (Spike Milligan)

Last one to leave for Stevenage please remember to turn out the lights.

If a drop of rain falls in the middle of the forest, does it make someone wet?

I voted around 7:20am; around the same time as I did in 2004, I believe. In 2004, I don't recall seeing a soul enter/exit the place during the 100m walk up Chevening Road, while I was in there or on my way out. This time, I saw six people. So, there you go. 185% turnout.

Don't know if somebody's pondered this upthread or not: could a high-profile, blunder-strewn Boris mayorship actually dent the Tory's ratings before the next general election?

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3006/2436824909_de50172c4a.jpg

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3850640.ece

could a high-profile, blunder-strewn Boris mayorship actually dent the Tory's ratings before the next general election?

Maybe, still DO NOT WANT. Reminds me of people saying that Bush beating Kerry would be a good thing in the long run cos a 2nd Bush term would be so bad, the Dems would sweep Congress in '06. Which more or less happened but we still had another term of Bush.

I considered that but it's clutching at straws really. Don't think he'd be in long enough to do major damage to a Cameron election campaign.

I think BJ is a bit like W.

One person who said that 2004 result was good: Slavoj Zizek, in a long letter to the LRB, which for some reason they felt compelled to print.

I was looking for crumbs of potential comfort, not a game plan.

I remember the day after that 11.2004 election, the sense of desolation - talking to people like it was the end of the world. I suppose I later came to feel that it wasn't. But of course it was still a terrible result, and two terms is two more than W should ever have had.

Another 110 posts and we'll have beaten the US election thread for the week.

I've been feeling a long-drawn out sense of desolation since about 6 weeks after the 1997 general election.

I think it's been established in the public mind that there's a degree of separation between the Mayor and the national party, so a Boris cock-up may not necessarily harm Cameron.

Still, I don't think Cameron will allow Boris to make a balls-up of it, and Boris will be much more beholden to Cameron than Ken has been to Blair/Brown.

I wasn't necessarily thinking of out-and-out cock-ups so much as a nice reminder to the country at large that New Conservatives aren't quite as touchy-feely as Cameron would like to paint them.

Who could possibly think he would make a good mayor? I'm honestly befuddled. It seems like such a frivolous way to vote.

Yeah, Britain's never struck me as a country in thrall to celebrity.

people = shit

Tracer, I don't know if you were in London at the time but there was a fairly wide-held view in 2000, particularly in the media, that Ken would be an absolute disaster as Mayor, that he wouldn't be able to run a major City, that it would be all gaffes and empty gestures etc. It didn't stop him getting elected and proving people wrong - I'm still worried about a similar thing happening with Johnson though.

Lol the thought of the country in general caring about 'touchy feely' at this point in time. "At least they're not Labour" is going to become the new "at least they're not the Tories", especially among voters too young to remember a Tory government.

I wasn't necessarily thinking of out-and-out cock-ups so much as a nice reminder to the country at large that New Conservatives aren't quite as touchy-feely as Cameron would like to paint them.

I don't think touchy-feely is much of a vote winner in Middle England these days anyway

Tho it might persuade a few "Liberals" to vote Tory

Yeah that's all pretty much true. The majority of the population is probably small c conservative, and Labour's attempt to shift what conservatism means a couple of millimetres to the left has probably only been skin deep. This is a depressing train of thought tho, really depressing. It generally leads straight down to gin and cackling about people getting the government they deserve, as grimly rightly points out.

What attempt?

Seriously, millimetres.

In what direction tho?

Allegedly more important news issues according to the BBC at the moment: babysitter to get retrial re. killing a kid, Austrian Pedodad round the twist, Maddy Maddy Maddy.

This country really will get the government it fucking deserves.

I think there was an attempt to carry out some micro-redistribution of wealth which was unfortunately scuppered by their absolute terror of confronting big capital. The minimum wage is, cautiously, an improvement on how things were before. None of this is much use at all, but that's a slivver of clear blue water between them and the Tories.

Considering one of Brown's last actions as Chancellor was to cut income tax for everyone except low earners, as a vote-wining ambulance ball to his future self as Prime Minister, I'm not sure even the line that people now accept higher overall taxation in return for improved public services stands.

New Labour have slashed their own consensus, if indeed this consensus existed in the first place. If we're honest the reason they won in the first place was because the Tories ballsed up the economy and then spent the next five years fucking and bribing anything that moved.

Well maybe another 20 years of electoral kickings will sort the party out but I doubt it. lol democracy

Allegedly more important news issues according to the BBC at the moment: babysitter to get retrial re. killing a kid, Austrian Pedodad round the twist, Maddy Maddy Maddy.

Yes, forget all that rubbish and tell me more about Haifa Wehbe

Also, if we accept that post-Thatcher global capitalism is now so dominant in Britain that no government can really go against it (big assumption but run with me), then Blair's was the first 'new' government in this environment. We don't actually know how much further to the right the Tories will run, given the opportunity.

people upthread using toynbees microscope again

For Britain subsititute England of course

Yes, sorry, I forget about Scotland.

For Britain subsititute England of course

much as i love wee fat eck and his gang, he's hardly "going against global capitalism", is he? hello mr trump. hello what's left of the oil. etc.

Who said he was? Who is? Osama bin Laden? Stop Scottish independence or you will really be in the shitter, for now and eternity

"You" being the English, of course