Ken vs. Boris: It's So On

The compere at the Rise gig yesterday said if we vote Ken they'll get Snoop Dogg next year. Good enough for me.

I love you but I've chosen Boris

"that's such bullshit. he's an evil tory but not a racist so far as i can tell"

I think Boris's problem is that he's the sort of person who thinks doing an impression of the guy out of Short Circuit would be a jolly wheeze and would then be mortified and a little confused when someone called him a racist as a result.

Clearly the stage is set for a plucky and possibly well-known independent with a populist cause to promote. Possibly something to do with hospitals.

Guys, I don't think Boris actually knows what Short Circuit is. Also what little credit I'd give him would be to know which gaffes fall on the 'acceptable' side of 'oh that Boris look at his bufoonish ways getting him into trouble again'. Pulling a comedy Indian accent = definitely on the other side of that line.

after some pretty well-documented gaffes in that area from ken this is all pretty wtf.

wasn't the guy in short circuit sikh?

Precisely.

ok well, i don't think boris is that stupid.

I don't think he's stupid at all. Just an idiot. Two very different things.

http://www.moviezone.cz/rubrics_images/novinky/6/johnpet_1.jpg

Ken has been a good mayor, apart from the cosying up to the muslim right wing; the congestion charge and cheaper busses have been good, policing doesn't seem to be any worse, he has bugger all power over anything else. Boris must be crust and humiliated at all costs.

crust = crushed

someone at m4tron4t just suggested they "bring in alan sugar".

Boris must be crust... what, so I can eat him with curds and whey?

Mostly I've been pretty happy with Ken. Except for the bloody stupid Olympics thing.

simon cowell

> and cheaper busses

what are these cheaper buses of which you speak? when ken came to power it was the 70p / 100p split, and a day ticket was £2... (now singles are £1 oyster, £2 cash and £3 daily. (or free if it's a bendy bus and you get on at the back))

haha yeah otm. buses are not cheaper. nor is the tube.

The Tube is cheaper if you have an Oystercard. And hey, what with the glorious new bendy buses you can travel for free most of the time!

Cheaper than what? I'm pretty sure a travelcard was cheaper pre-Ken than on Oyster, even allowing for inflation.

have they ever gotten cheaper, other than during the GLC?

the oyster fares themselves have gone up above inflation, i'm pretty sure. even then it's insanely expensive compared with its european equivalents.

The idea that the tube should pay for itself through the fare box is completely out of Ken's hands, but it's a fucking travesty all the same.

cheaper buses??!?

oh xxxxxposts!

it would be interesting to see a pre- and post-ken comparison of bus fare vs. number of buses on the roads, the latter of which has gone up considerably since he became mayor (not to mention average bus speed); it's not just a simple jacking-up of price (cf. the new york MTA), there are concrete additional and improved services being offered for the fare increase

i think ken's great, he should be mayor for life. he's not who i would grow in a lab to be my Ideal Mayor, but look at the alternatives.

but i thought the congestion charge money was going to be used to improve buses etc.

+i'm sure the metrocard was like $2 a day last time i was in new york, and you get 24 hour trains!

but yeah, boris for mayor sounds a bit crap. Can't we just have Arnold Schwarzenegger?

Not seeing much in the way of improved or additional services on the Victoria line at the moment :(

Do you really think that BORIS* would make the trains run on time?

Come on, this is a man who looks like he can't even match his socks in the morning.

*and I mean Johnson, no the Japanese noize band. Though having a Japanese Noize band for mayor might be quite good.

No, I would definitely vote for Ken over Boris (or probably any of the other candidates). Just moaning.

I know. I just don't want my FIRST ELECTION TO EVER HAVE VOTED IN, OR EVEN BEEN LEGALLY ABLE TO VOTE IN to have to vote against the man I want to father my children. :-(

The first election I ever voted in, I (indirectly, obv) voted for Tony Blair... oh such optimistic days etc. Worcester got its first ever Labour MP thanks to me though (well and partly due to redrawing the boundaries so most of the surrounding farmland got shifted to Wychavon or Malvern or wherever so the constituency only covers the actual city now)

poor children :(

red ken doesn't control the tubes though, does he?

ken c, those things are true of the MTA in new york, but remember that the subways are on about the same frequency - or less - than london buses. and also that the NYC bus system is a joke.

red ken has also told virtually every PFI venture that's gone tits up that they can go hang if they expect a bailout from local government

i mean, as zany as boris is, could even he out-zany this deal that red ken made?? (ans: yes, but it would benefit a handful of his friends rather than a quarter million londoners on income support)

that is the right kind of zane

apart from the cosying up to the muslim right wing

jog my memory?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4165691.stm

peter watts linked a beef ken had with ed 'the islamist' husain on the today prog recently where ken got his ass handed to him.

Qaradawi is hardly a right-wing Muslim

Oh god, I think I wanna have your babies...

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44000000/jpg/_44000588_boris203_bbc.jpg

I don't really understand all these "anyone but Ken!" haterz. Though I suppose the things that people complain about (the congestion charge) are exactly the sort of things I think make him a great mayor. These things may not be popular, but they make London a better place for the people that LIVE here.

<i>Qaradawi is hardly a right-wing Muslim</i>

True enough, antisemitism is very left these days.

God, I sound like Nick Cohen.

not always

xpost

he's pretty right-wing, tracer. the ken of the '80s was, if memory serves, quite sanctimonious about LBG issues etc...

xpost

whereas boris is a fun-loving leftie

this thread is actually worse than boris being mayor would be.

blueski for mayro

actually oh god no

ok, enlighten me on Qaradawi's right-wingness, i'm totally willing to be wrong here. but i remember poring over transcripts when that story broke in 2004 and finding nothing very remarkable about Qaradawi's views (the homophobia is unfortunate but unremarkable if you consider that the guy's a Muslim cleric; i mean, try asking the Archbishop of Canterbury how he's livin these days on that issue; still, Ken addressed the homophobia head-on)

http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2007/07/blurring-the-li.html

gives some sense of the husain vs livingstone thing. i need to google "ed husain mi5 mossad" now to see how it's gone down.

oh well, if the guy's a muslim cleric then i guess he gets a free pass.

Think Boris will win comfortably anyway, he's distanced himself enough from the government in the popular consciousness.

am starting to think that "selfish buffoon" is kind of the default mayoral choice for metropolitan mayors

Maracas.jpg

http://www.newstatesman.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/fullnode_image/articles_2012/80970112.jpg

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/4/3/1333451230152/Ken-Livingstone-and-Boris-008.jpg

Will West
@Castmana1
Now I like Ken Livingstone, and I like Boris Johnson, but which is better? There's only one way to find out... #kenandboris #fight

i trust we all have our "sack boris" oyster card wallets?

http://www.tssa.org.uk/en/campaigns/index.cfm/campaign/sack-boris

oh good i need one to replace the horrible mastercard one.

got held up by the ancient, sputtering "not ken again" bus last week. p much decided my vote.

JD Wetherspoon chairman Tim Martin added: “When I first moved to London, Ken was in charge and he opened this huge library near where I lived in Wood Green. It was my first taste of his extravagance and that’s always stuck with me. So I’m backing Boris — I hope he’ll spend money more wisely than Ken has done.”

They have books in Wetherspoons you know.

libraries are pretty much the dry, marxist version of wetherspoons

god this is TOMORROW

any particular feelings about jenny jones or siobhan benita? or brian paddick, indeed.

This is the quietest election ever, I've barely even noticed it.

Wonder if Paddick might come in fourth.

maybe because boris is so far ahead in the polls? or because it's not exactly an inspiring choice

if the populus poll is to be believed there's a possibility that paddick might come FIFTH :o

I've been more aware of Paddock than any of the others as his "i'm a copper" billboards seem to be all over South London. Probably not the best way to go to attract Brixton votes, really.

isn't his entire shtick meant to be "i'm a copper but not like all them other corrupt thuggish coppers and i will REFORM the POLICE"? he's not v good at conveying it

i spent a few hours the other week googling the london assembly candidates in the little booklet. how did people work out who was running before the internet?

i guess the plethora of right-wing splitter parties should serve to split the vote so it's a good thing, but it's horrible flipping through the booklet and being like, oh look, there's the BNP, the 3nglish d3mocrats, UKIP and the National Front! plus some bullshit about traditional marriage.

paddick has been comparing himself to galloway, apparently, based on a) their low polling numbers and b) their reality tv show pasts

:(

you can't even make punchlines about these people any more

can't say i'm not tempted by benita purely because she's a faceless dull civil servant and not a personality clown, but protest-voting is kinda lame isn't it

I passed Boris' bus this morning, outside the Hilton, Paddington. He was not in it.

JD Wetherspoon chairman Tim Martin added: “When I first moved to London, Ken was in charge and he opened this huge library near where I lived in Wood Green. It was my first taste of his extravagance and that’s always stuck with me. So I’m backing Boris — I hope he’ll spend money more wisely than Ken has done.”

so far beyond parody, these cunts

If Ken Loach had written that...

It's only because he hopes Boris'll close it so that he can turn it into a pub called The Library.

MJ hibbett is a prophet

I've been more aware of Paddock than any of the others as his "i'm a copper" billboards seem to be all over South London. Probably not the best way to go to attract Brixton votes, really.

― Upt0eleven, Wednesday, 2 May 2012 10:39 (4 hours ago)

yeah his are the only ads i've seen. in kingston, where i guess it could sell.

tho i haven't received my polling card, i imagine i'll turn up at the office tomorrow and my vote will have been nicked.

Don't think it's that cut-and-dried, he effectively decriminalized cannabis in Brixton. Of course he's also a LibDem and a nonentity as a politician.

he has those posters in finsbury park and tottenham also, i can confirm

I got a Ken leaflet through my letterbox the other night at 10pm just after I'd shut off the TV and the whole house was quiet, it frightened the hell out of me.

my french housemate who's not eligible to vote has received a voting card, maybe you could just use hers merdeyeux

xp, i got an election leaflet at eleven pm, a few years ago, while watching The Exorcist. I nearly died.

The election was probably there for the taking with a stronger candidate but i can't see Boris getting beaten by Ken. The Labour campaign has been half-hearted, at best. At worst, it's looked like they've actually wanted Boris to win - possibly with a view to him challenging Cameron for leadership somewhere down the line.

this is the first i've seen the borisbus and its broken down just in the middle of the road #moneywellspent
http://distilleryimage10.instagram.com/75722684b55c11e188131231381b5c25_7.jpg

it turns back to being a bendy bus afterall
http://distilleryimage0.instagram.com/62a243c2b56611e1abb01231382049c1_7.jpg