The London Mayoral election

[Manic Impressive]

Boris Johnson has been a mayor for the rich and the bankers—not to mention he’s a millionaire himself. He has pocketed £250,000 a year for his Telegraph column alone while he’s been in the job, but he says that money is just “chicken feed”. Meanwhile he has hiked tube and bus fares, hitting the poorest.
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, to give him his full name, not only went to posh private school Eton with David Cameron but was in the Bullingdon Club at Oxford with him too. And both are descended from royalty, tracing their ancestors back to King George II. No wonder Boris hates working class people and has been lobbying for even tighter anti-union laws.
And they’re not the only ones he has a problem with. As well as famously referring to Africans as “picaninnies”, he also wrote that the Macpherson inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence was “hysteria”. He then slammed “the PC brigade” for trying to tackle the police’s institutional racism. On Islam, he wrote, “To any non-Muslim reader of the Koran, Islamophobia—fear of Islam—seems a natural reaction”, adding, “Islam is the problem.”
Then there’s his track record of backing Tory anti-gay law Section 28. As late as 2000 he openly said the law was needed to stop “homosexual instruction”. In one of his books he wrote, “If gay marriage was OK… then I saw no reason in principle why a union should not be consecrated between three men, as well as two men, or indeed three men and a dog.”
Perhaps most importantly, though, there’s the impact it would have on the Tories nationally. Boris called the phone hacking scandal “a load of codswallop” when it started, but it’s proving toxic for the government. A defeat for Boris in London will add to their crisis. As the Daily Mail argued yesterday, "A Johnson win would steady the Conservatives after a month of calamitous collywobbles", but a loss for Boris "would have the Tories weeping and wailing".

To put the boot into Boris on 3 May:


Vote Ken Livingstone for London mayor
Vote Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) Against Cuts for the London Assembly (on the orange ballot paper)


And here's the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition platform

http://www.tusc.org.uk/images/furniture/TUSCpostcardfront170212.jpg
And to avoid being labelled sectarian for singling out the Trots. Here's the Communist Party of Britain's stance.

"The Communist Party urges the left to unite in support of Ken Livingstone for Mayor of London at the Greater London Authority elections on May 3 2012 (...)
"The Communist Party considers the political priority in the May elections to be the defeat of the Right. This must be achieved through:
The election of Ken Livingstone as Mayor of London.
The election of a Labour majority in the Greater London Assembly."
Workers Liberty makes a good case for not voting for Ken Livingston in this article (http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2012/03/07/vote-livingstone-very-critically) but then go back on themselves and endorse him for mayor.

There has been a minor scandal in the media because Livingstone and his wife set up a company to channel money from his media appearances and speeches — allowing them to avoid the 50% income tax rate and pay 20% corporation tax instead.
It’s right that there should be a scandal. It’s a shame it’s so far mostly limited to the press, and limited to the issue of tax-dodging. The real issue here is that Livingstone is a very rich man trying to get richer — not the kind of individual who can seriously represent working-class London.
Nor is it “just” a matter of personal wealth. It’s his policies. In 2008, when Labour chancellor Alistair Darling proposed a trivial tax on foreign financiers, and was backed by the Tories, Livingstone opposed the move. While as London Mayor he never offended the City, or property-developers, he did go out of his way to attack the unions on London Underground.
Livingstone's record and his policies on a whole range of issues — not just basic “class struggle” ones, but his links to reactionary semi-Islamist forces — rule out the idea that he is a serious left-winger, let alone a socialist. This is abundantly obvious, if you don't close your eyes to it. Go on Livingstone's campaign website, for instance, and you immediately confronted with a special page featuring an image of policeman's helmet and a pledge to increase police numbers.

We should still work for a Labour victory — despite Livingstone.

So does anyone from any of these organizations want to try and justify this blatant reformism?
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/chimage.php?image=2012/2300/bootsm.jpg

[bricolage]

If you vote TUSC for the London Assembly you get such amazing things as this:

As a trade unionist, I welcome the Police Federation's decision to ballot police officers over strike action against the cuts to its service. I hope the police do strike as they did in 1918 and 1919. Through striking, I hope that it increases many ordinary rank-and-file police officers' collective understanding.

Only through struggling to defend their service will the police understand the need for free association and to form an independent trade union that collectively bargains and defends the rights of its members, while also kicking itchy-fingered racists and anti-trade union corrupt officers out of its ranks.

socialists and cops! unite and fight!
:rolleyes:

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Sure is appalling how they can still claim to support Livingstone after all the things he did and let happen during the time when he was mayor.

[MotherCossack]

well i am gonna vote for ken..... otherwise boris gets it.....and....
ME-NO-LIKEE-

i know he [ken] is a revisionist... capitalism' s arse -licking, power-greedy, tyrannical, egotistical and unlovable relic...... but...
i want to wrestle every tiny bit of power away from the tories that i can.....
they are scum...and deserve no position of authority... anywhere!

it would be more satisfying to say fuck you to all of them...
but bearing in mind the absence of any forseeable action to follow .... like organised .... well.... anything...not a thing.....
let alone productive protest....i have to dirty my hands with the ballot box biro......

when there are any rumblings that could herald an alternative.... i'm gonna BE THERE...
in the interim....
ken is a shitload better than bumbling, boris even if he is more of a bore.

[Crux]

If you vote TUSC for the London Assembly you get such amazing things as this:


socialists and cops! unite and fight!
:rolleyes:
union rights and cop strikes are something else than uniting with the cops though. As we can see in brazil at the moment cops striking in conjunction with a brewing movement among the working class makes the ruling class worried.

[bricolage]

union rights and cop strikes are something else than uniting with the cops though. As we can see in brazil at the moment cops striking in conjunction with a brewing movement among the working class makes the ruling class worried.
I'm of the firm opinion that the only industrial action a cop can take is to quit their job.
I especially don't think we should be marching alongside them as TUSC/SPEW seem to be proposing.

I don't know much about the events in brazil though, do you have any links?

[Left Leanings]

Sure is appalling how they can still claim to support Livingstone after all the things he did and let happen during the time when he was mayor.

Ken Livingstone's motto is 'if voting changed anything, they would abolish it'. Odd for someone who has consistently stood in elections. Nothing more than a career politician, showing a left face to the people, and leading them down a blind alley.

I'm not a Londoner, so can't vote in this election. I mostly can't be arsed voting, but when I do, as much as I do is draw a vertical line through all the boxes on the ballot paper, and write in capitals 'vote of no confidence' on it.


union rights and cop strikes are something else than uniting with the cops though. As we can see in brazil at the moment cops striking in conjunction with a brewing movement among the working class makes the ruling class worried.

The arses of the ruling-class always go, when the police threaten industrial action. Thatcher was forced to increase their pay in the 1980s, the last time they made this threat over here. The thought of the 'thin blue line' not being on the job to protect their pampered backsides, puts them right off their dinner.


I'm of the firm opinion that the only industrial action a cop can take is to quit their job.
I especially don't think we should be marching alongside them as TUSC/SPEW seem to be proposing.

I don't know much about the events in brazil though, do you have any links?

Yep. Be a copper, be class traitor and an agent for capital. Quit the fucking job. End of.

[ed miliband]

well i am gonna vote for ken..... otherwise boris gets it.....and....
ME-NO-LIKEE-

i know he [ken] is a revisionist... capitalism' s arse -licking, power-greedy, tyrannical, egotistical and unlovable relic...... but...
i want to wrestle every tiny bit of power away from the tories that i can.....
they are scum...and deserve no position of authority... anywhere!

it would be more satisfying to say fuck you to all of them...
but bearing in mind the absence of any forseeable action to follow .... like organised .... well.... anything...not a thing.....
let alone productive protest....i have to dirty my hands with the ballot box biro......

when there are any rumblings that could herald an alternative.... i'm gonna BE THERE...
in the interim....
ken is a shitload better than bumbling, boris even if he is more of a bore.

care to explain how ken in a "shitload" better than boris other than him wearing a red tie and boris a blue (which seems to be your only reasoning)

[NoPasaran1936]

This is basically "Vote Labour" It's fine, because they're not tory...

Awesome logic, TUSC, fucking awesome.

[Rocky Rococo]

If cops go on strike lefties will need to put on body armor and beat and pepper-spray all of them to preserve lawnorta.

[Crux]

This is basically "Vote Labour" It's fine, because they're not tory...

Awesome logic, TUSC, fucking awesome.
remind me...I know swp, awl and cpb are calling for a lab vote but where do you see TUSC doing it?

[Agathor]

If Ken wins Boris can go back to hosting Have I Got News For You and I can go back to chuckling at the Evening Standard's temper tantrums. That's reason enough to vote for Livingstone.

[Manic Impressive]

Yeah I would have thought TUSC's completely reformist platform which is supported by SWP and SPEW would be enough to embarrass any socialist.

[robbo203]

well i am gonna vote for ken..... otherwise boris gets it.....and....
ME-NO-LIKEE-

i know he [ken] is a revisionist... capitalism' s arse -licking, power-greedy, tyrannical, egotistical and unlovable relic...... but...
i want to wrestle every tiny bit of power away from the tories that i can.....
they are scum...and deserve no position of authority... anywhere!

it would be more satisfying to say fuck you to all of them...
but bearing in mind the absence of any forseeable action to follow .... like organised .... well.... anything...not a thing.....
let alone productive protest....i have to dirty my hands with the ballot box biro......

when there are any rumblings that could herald an alternative.... i'm gonna BE THERE...
in the interim....
ken is a shitload better than bumbling, boris even if he is more of a bore.

I just dont get it. This whole-voting-for-the-lesser-evil argument is a fundamentally flawed and opportunistic.

The Labour Party is a capitalist party just like the Tories. Just like the Tories, it presumes that it can run capitalism in terms that conform to its stated policy intentions. It cant. It never has and it never will.

Dont you get it? Political parties that seek to administer capitalism become themselves the means and instruments through which the needs of the system impose themselves on the population. The system changes the politicans rather than they, the system. So in recession a labour government, just as much as a Tory one, will cut back on spending despite proetesting at such cuts when it was previously the opposition - because the system requires it. It needs its. Its got nothing to do with cuddly Ken or Boring Boris.

Capitalist parties are , one might say, by definition reformist parties and, as such, are destined to failure. Failure is built into the very structure of capitalist politics. Competitive politicking requires the competing parties to more extravagant promises which they cannot possibly keep. Therefore whoever gets in power will never live up to what it has promised . It will fail and its failure will simply path the way for the "other side" to get in - eventually. That is why capitalist politics takes the form of endless see saw between two or more competing reformist organisations jockeying for power.

The muppets in the SWP and all the other opportunist outfits that urge us to "vote labour without delusions" just cannot seem to see this. They are recommending to us what will be simply an unending treadmill of diappointed hopes and cycnical disilliusionment. They dont seem to understand just what a disempowering effect this have on workers

Voting for labour is actually the same thing as voting for Tory in the sense that it is merely preparing the ground for the Tories to come as they would eventually with Labour inevitably failing. At the moment the Tories are in power. They too will fail and so voting for the Tories is also a way of ensuring Labour gets back. There is no logical end to this constant and futile see saw movement of capitalist politics

EXCEPT ,of course, to say enough is enough!!! You need the courage of your convictions to say "Fuck it! I dont goive a shit if Ken is more cuddly than Boris. Or even if he mouths pseudo socialist rhetoric unlike Boris. Im not going to vote for him or anyone else who stands for capitalism. Im not going to give legitmacy to capitalism by voting for the allegedly lesser evil of those parties seeking to administer this system"

Not voting or spoiling your ballot would be a vastly more significant and empowering act than endorsing the capitalist system, even if only by default, by voting for those who would presume to operate it supposedly in your interests.

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

Livingstone's a dick, Boris a buffoon, no other candidate is really worth voting for..

Alot of parties (including the CPB - ML) take a stance of supporting Labour, CPB-ML did it in the 80's to try and oust Thatcher...wonder why they bother being in smaller seperate parties if all they seem to do is ask everyone on the left to vote for Labour because they used to be more socialist party and are betetr than the tories...why don't they all just join Labour and be a part of the little socialist campaign groups or 'loony left' backbenchers?

[Manic Impressive]

The muppets in the SWP and all the other opportunist outfits that urge us to "vote labour without delusions" just cannot seem to see this. They are recommending to us what will be simply an unending treadmill of diappointed hopes and cycnical disilliusionment. They dont seem to understand just what a disempowering effect this have on workers
Well said Robbo as always, but it's not just the fact that they endorse capitalist candidates, they themselves stand candidates on reformist platforms thus becoming a capitalist party themselves no better than a clause 4 Labour party.



What I'd really like to know is how the "building a movement through reforms" strategy can possibly be defended. But it seems as though no Trots are brave enough to come and defend it.

[dodger]

Livingstone's a dick, Boris a buffoon, no other candidate is really worth voting for..

Alot of parties (including the CPB - ML) take a stance of supporting Labour, CPB-ML did it in the 80's to try and oust Thatcher...wonder why they bother being in smaller seperate parties if all they seem to do is ask everyone on the left to vote for Labour because they used to be more socialist party and are betetr than the tories...why don't they all just join Labour and be a part of the little socialist campaign groups or 'loony left' backbenchers?

The 80's all I can remember is the crap music. I live in torytown my vote would be wasted anyhow. Never the less I voted labour, to rid myself of Thatcher. She departed as was predicted by Tories fearful of losing their seats. I have not voted since. Though I would vote in EU referendum--to leave. Voting Livingstone has me spitting feathers.Scab. As far as I know CPBML are unequivical, don't vote. The only time I come across CPBML members is in union or TUC at all levels. They are at least sane, effective. I don't suppose they will accept your kindly offer of joining labour. With or without that lazy ill thought mantra.(without illusions hihi)

Lesser of two evils? Why vote for any evil!?

[NoPasaran1936]

remind me...I know swp, awl and cpb are calling for a lab vote but where do you see TUSC doing it?

Oh, is the SWP no longer apart of TUSC? As far as I'm aware, if one section calls for a labour vote, they all are.

[NoPasaran1936]

And why do the SWP feel the need to quote Johnson's full name? My surname has a mixture of French and English names, does that make me posh?

Fuck me, political parties do my nut.

[ed miliband]

And why do the SWP feel the need to quote Johnson's full name? My surname has a mixture of French and English names, does that make me posh?

Fuck me, political parties do my nut.

only fair that we acknowledge swp bigwig alex callinicos is the son of the Hon. Ædgyth Bertha Milburg Mary Antonia Frances Lyon-Dalberg-Acton

(that's really his mother's name)

[Left Leanings]

only fair that we acknowledge swp bigwig alex callinicos is the son of the Hon. Ædgyth Bertha Milburg Mary Antonia Frances Lyon-Dalberg-Acton

(that's really his mother's name)

My parents never gave me or our kid, a middle name even. Bit of a toffee-nosed mouthfull she's got right there :rolleyes:

[ed miliband]

i've got a very posh full name tbh but then names don't really reflect class in any meaningful way

[Left Leanings]

i've got a very posh full name tbh but then names don't really reflect class in any meaningful way

It's true. I was only being facetious ;)

[robbo203]

Well said Robbo as always, but it's not just the fact that they endorse capitalist candidates, they themselves stand candidates on reformist platforms thus becoming a capitalist party themselves no better than a clause 4 Labour party.



What I'd really like to know is how the "building a movement through reforms" strategy can possibly be defended. But it seems as though no Trots are brave enough to come and defend it.


Yes indeed - where are those who urge us to "vote labour without illusions" - or is that, "delusions". What sort or illusion/delusion are they harbouring that this might actually serve some useful purpose? I too would like to hear what they have to say for themselves but it seems they are a bit coy when it comes to explaining themselves

[dodger]

Oh, is the SWP no longer apart of TUSC? As far as I'm aware, if one section calls for a labour vote, they all are.

If you recheck you will find SWP was never part of TUSC. apparently they were not thought genuine partners unable to play the game..RMT is no friend of LABOUR and we were chucked out . Good, leave or the bum's rush all the same to me, we have prospered gaining members. They lost members, last figures I saw, 135,000--big business has plugged the hole, surprise surprise!! Personally I think my union is on a fools errand supporting TUSC and would wish it to pursue more effective tactics.

[dodger]

Yes indeed - where are those who urge us to "vote labour without illusions" - or is that, "delusions". What sort or illusion/delusion are they harbouring that this might actually serve some useful purpose? I too would like to hear what they have to say for themselves but it seems they are a bit coy when it comes to explaining themselves

Indeeed Robbo delusions/illusins one can't help think why the deluded would have the nerve to call on the rest of us suffering humanity, to cease delusions Dodger not known for being over sensitive but I do hate to be patronised or frankly insulted. Very few are deluded least of all Labour members many of them over the years worn down by the task of changing it. Many too decent class fighters, effective , my union vote has always gone to the best man/woman for the job. Why over decades have they continued with this drivel? LENIN TOLD A SCOTSMAN TO VOTE Labour, arguing the case into the night. Labour had never won an election. Now they have. Do they think any of us dunderheads have any delusions? Who is deluded?

A hysterical call to vote LABOUR to keep BNP out or the Tories for that matter is seen as mere self serving. The Tories might the BNP never.

[A Marxist Historian]

union rights and cop strikes are something else than uniting with the cops though. As we can see in brazil at the moment cops striking in conjunction with a brewing movement among the working class makes the ruling class worried.

I don't know much about what's up with the cops in Brazil this week, but what I do know is that the Brazilian police force is one of the most murderous, evil and vicious in the entire world.

During the military dictatorship, they were the main torturers.

And during and afterwards, it was in Brazil that the term "social cleansing" was coined.

Due to the police policy of murdering the poor and homeless to clean up the neighborhoods of crime, graffiti, etc.

That's not hyperbole, that's what they actually did. Police death squads switched their attentions from pleftists to the very poor.

Now, I don't know what their strike is all about. My guess is that they want to make use of the fact that the Brazilian ruling class needs cops more and more now what with that "brewing movement among the working class" to cadge themselves some wage increases, better equipment to kill workers, etc.

If so, I hope the bastards get their asses kicked.

-M.H.-

[Crux]

I don't know much about what's up with the cops in Brazil this week, but what I do know is that the Brazilian police force is one of the most murderous, evil and vicious in the entire world.

During the military dictatorship, they were the main torturers.

And during and afterwards, it was in Brazil that the term "social cleansing" was coined.

Due to the police policy of murdering the poor and homeless to clean up the neighborhoods of crime, graffiti, etc.

That's not hyperbole, that's what they actually did. Police death squads switched their attentions from pleftists to the very poor.

Now, I don't know what their strike is all about. My guess is that they want to make use of the fact that the Brazilian ruling class needs cops more and more now what with that "brewing movement among the working class" to cadge themselves some wage increases, better equipment to kill workers, etc.

If so, I hope the bastards get their asses kicked.

-M.H.-
yeah no shit. However it's cops versus cops now. (http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2012/02/20122623827930552.html)

Dodger: AFAIK the SWP are still in TUSC yes, however TUSC has not called for a vote for Livingstone. This is the Socialist Party's take on it: London Mayor election - Boris versus Ken (http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/14308)

[wwcd]

So glad I don't live in London. Despise Ken, but would have to vote Labour. Would be an excruciating deed.

[dodger]

yeah no shit. However it's cops versus cops now. (http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2012/02/20122623827930552.html)

Dodger: AFAIK the SWP are still in TUSC yes, however TUSC has not called for a vote for Livingstone. This is the Socialist Party's take on it: London Mayor election - Boris versus Ken (http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/14308)

MANY thanks for the update, old fellow bit out of touch. Shocked even THEY/ WE ALL SAID...WE WOULD NEVER TOUCH THE SWP WITH A BARGEPOLE....SOMETHING TELLS ME IT WILL ALL GO BADLY WRONG...and me the eternal optimist.Just my take Majakovskij whilst RMT has a spark of influence there will be no support for lab/liv. I hope that prediction doesn't fall by the wayside. Eating my own words at the rate I gabble on is pretty indigestible.

Money. effort better spent elsewhere , dammit.

[ed miliband]

So glad I don't live in London. Despise Ken, but would have to vote Labour. Would be an excruciating deed.

you wouldn't "have" to do anything

[Manic Impressive]

Dodger: AFAIK the SWP are still in TUSC yes, however TUSC has not called for a vote for Livingstone. This is the Socialist Party's take on it: London Mayor election - Boris versus Ken (http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/14308)
What difference does it make if they are supporting Labour or TUSC? Both are standing for reformist policies and by extension capitalist policies.

[A Marxist Historian]

yeah no shit. However it's cops versus cops now. (http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2012/02/20122623827930552.html)

Dodger: AFAIK the SWP are still in TUSC yes, however TUSC has not called for a vote for Livingstone. This is the Socialist Party's take on it: London Mayor election - Boris versus Ken (http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/14308)

The Al Jazeera piece was quite unenlightening as to what the strike is really about, except of course for "higher wages and better working conditions," something I am not particularly in favor of for Brazilian cops.

A strike leader was quoted as saying that the strike was "against the government." Now, I am no supporter of the regime of Lula's successor, but when cops go on strike against a Social Democratic regime, assuming that they want it replaced with a more left wing regime is naive.

More likely they want to bring back the good old days of the military dictatorship, when cops were no doubt treated better.

Insofar as this is a military conflict between the cops and the army, revolutionary defeatism seems in order.

-M.H.-

[Martin Blank]

What difference does it make if they are supporting Labour or TUSC? Both are standing for reformist policies and by extension capitalist policies.

Hear, hear!

As much as I have a lot of differences with them, I'd sooner vote for the SPGB candidates than TUSC or the other reformists. At least with the SPGB, you know you're getting people who put revolution first (even if it is meant to come about in a way that is based on the method of impressionism).

[Manic Impressive]

Thanks I think (not sure what impressionism is) but this is an example of our electioneering. :D


“It was in the 1960s, and a by-election was being fought in Glasgow Woodside constituency. In those days, parties too poor to afford posters still used the city’s traditional political medium: chalk on the pavement: One day, walking up Lynedoch Street, I found beneath my feet the following slogan, written in large, precise white capital letters:
‘IF YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND AND WANT SOCIALISM, DO NOT VOTE FOR THE CANDIDATE OF THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN.’

For sheer integrity, that slogan cannot be beaten."

oh and this here
We don’t want your vote. We don’t want your vote if you think socialism means nationalisation, higher taxation, welfare state, council estates, national liberation, legalising marijuana or anything of that sort. In short, we don’t want your vote if you think we need to keep and act within existing capitalism.
On the other hand, if you do want a sociaty of common ownership and democratic control; a worldwide co-operative commonwealth; the emancipation of labour from the chains of capital; then we’re your people, because that’s all we stand for.
Well, there’s a further catch, because all we’re doing is holding the banner aloft. If you want to make socialism happen you’ve got to prepared to do the work yourself – we’re not leaders, and don’t want to be. If you need someone to lead you into the promised land, some other bugger’ll lead you straight back out again.
That’s the choice in this election in a nutshell. A choice between confusing the issue, like whether it’s better to be dominated by British capitalists or European ones; whether it’s better to only allow capitalists to exploit us for a third of our waking hours, rather than a half; whether the state is the one that extracts profits from our labour, or private employers; or, making our demands crystal clear.
If you call yourself a socialist, why do you want to waste time trying to figure out how to make capitalism run better, anyway? The power to change the world lies in your hands, you don’t need to be bound by accepting things as they are – the point is to change them. If a majority decided to remake the world, no force on Earth could stop them.
A vote for the Socialist Party is a vote that says you are ready to act to make this change. A signal to your fellow socialists that they are not alone. A signal to your fellow workers that some people take the actual idea of socialism seriously, rather than relegating it to some bedtime fairytale never-never for after the work of running capitalism is done.
Let’s end on William Morris: “One man with an idea in his head is in danger of being considered a madman: two men with the same idea in common may be foolish, but can hardly be mad; ten men sharing an idea begin to act, a hundred draw attention as fanatics, a thousand and society begins to tremble, a hundred thousand and there is war abroad, and the cause has victories tangible and real; and why only a hundred thousand? Why not a hundred million and peace upon the Earth? You and I who agree together, it is we who have to answer that question.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Luckily saved myself the misery of having to justify why i'm not voting in this one, by leaving London last week, just in time to miss the polls.

Was tempted to vote Ken early on, but more and more was put off the idea. The only reason you'd vote for a left-reformist is to stuff the incumbent, but what's the point in that if you're just harking back to a conservative (small-c is important here) candidate from yesteryear? It doesn't exactly spell positive change, does it?

The whole mayoral election is shit. You have the Tories, UKIP, BNP, that cop standing for the lib dems, taxi-lady standing for the greens, a whitehall mandarin standing to get ground for a future Labour MP bid and Ken Livingstone. Sigh.

And typically, the 'left' says 'Vote Ken'. Love it!:lol:

[ed miliband]

boris just won

actually very close between him and ken

[RedAnarchist]

Yeah, Boris first, Ken second, the Green candidate third, the Lib Dem fourth, the Independent fifth and the two inbreds were sixth and seventh.

[MotherCossack]

i fucking am fucking well fucked right fucking off fucking now ... i can fucking tell you.
fuck this shit... i hate tories ... can you believe i suggested that voting for em is better than not voting at all....... stupid dozy fat slag that i am...
however much i say labour are a waste of time and it wont make a difference who wins....
every time the fucking tories win... i end up chin deep in a hell-pit of steaming shite wishing that they hadn't.

dirty vile fuckers hope they all come to grief and die horribly with their pants down in shame and humiliation...and fuck.....they play dirty...at least i'm only wishing them ill... not dishing it out....

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

i fucking am fucking well fucked right fucking off fucking now ... i can fucking tell you.
fuck this shit... i hate tories ... can you believe i suggested that voting for em is better than not voting at all....... stupid dozy fat slag that i am...
however much i say labour are a waste of time and it wont make a difference who wins....
every time the fucking tories win... i end up chin deep in a hell-pit of steaming shite wishing that they hadn't.

dirty vile fuckers hope they all come to grief and die horribly with their pants down in shame and humiliation...and fuck.....they play dirty...at least i'm only wishing them ill... not dishing it out....

I get a strong feeling you don't like them.

[MotherCossack]

bastards

in the latest vote for mayor
they went for boris and his flair
and his fluffywhite, potty hair.
he's like a cuddly teddy bear.

but boris never had any trouble
lived his life in a cozy bubble
take a huge sum then make it double
to him our lives are less than rubble
we are a whim like trendy stubble

[Left Leanings]

So that's London saddled with Boris the bumbling buffoon then :D

[MotherCossack]

the people voted on the day
they went for boris... a big hurray
ken muttered as he went away
'not fair.. i want to play
how comes boris gets to stay'

'i am the best you all luv me
the coolest mayor you could ever see.
i am off now goodbye' whined he
'to get a dram and a pot of tea
i feel a bit like a sodding flea
maybe ill go climb a very tall tree
and sulk until i need a wee
or someone offers me a tidy fee
to spill the beans and be funny
revenge is sweet he he he