mayor

the evening standard (look i have no idea why i buy it not only is it shit but it is also right wing…) carries several pieces today about the need for a mayoral candidate to oppose ken livingstone.
jonathon freedland’s piece is title “still wanted – a mayor who will take on ken”, the piece basically argues that it is not healthy for london for ken livingstone to be effectively rubber-stamped into role election after election.
the leader column, “london deserves a proper contest”, says the same thing, but adds that it is stupid that some of the big names of the conservatives are scared of running in case they get beaten.
meanwhile nick curtis presents a humour(less) mock diary piece, “briefly, the certainty of my 30-year reign wavers.” the piece has a little bolded line that alerts the reader that “our writer imagined how the mayor would record the his week.” it should also come with the note that this is a chuckle free zone (actually given the propensity of columnists of the independent to write for the standard they should also have mark steel contribute to the faux diaries as he is equally unfunny).

most of this has been brought on because david cameron’s last best hope for a mayoral candidate to possibly topple ken was greg dyke.
greg dyke isn’t a politician. he is a media genius. he is someone who has spent many years working in tv, for people such as gmtv, where he introduced roland the rat, and then later at the bbc where he was director general.
dyke was a supporter of tony blair and the new labour project. the iraq war and weapons of mass destruction may have dented his affections for new labour, as he quit his post over the david kelly affair.
it could be thought that dyke may have wanted to score some revenge on blair and friends and for that reason he agreed to stand as an independent candidate as long as both the conservatives and liberal democrats backed him.
menzies campbell decided that he couldn’t back dyke because he was worried about the reaction of his party members.
thus cameron’s great hope is shot down in flames.

ironically dyke said after he decided not to run that he thought livingstone had been doing an ok job. which begs the question why was dyke prepared to run against someone who he thought had been doing a reasonable job and was of the same broad political outlook as himself. could the answer be: ego. is it a case that some people need to be in the spotlight?

the evening standard and freedland are right there does need to be a serious contender to oppose ken. if you do not have a strong opposition then you do not really have democracy. to be honest i am not sure how ken has done as mayor it all seems to be a little underwhelming. true he has brought in the congestion charge; he had fought the corner of london underground. but he seems determined to turn swathes of london into a version of new york, in doing so there will be a large number of faceless soulless tall glass boxes going up – not all of them will be as visually pleasing as the swiss re building, besides which even a cursory walk around manhattan shows that there is more to the city than tall buildings.
but that is a digression.

now lots of people talk about there is no longer a connection between the electorate and politicians. a lot of guff is spoken about how to reconnect to the man in the street and how to appeal to them and how to reengage them in the political process.
the conservatives provide us with a partial explanation as to why there is this gap.

cameron wants to find someone to stand against ken. now it seems obvious that the person who stands against ken livingstone has to have something to say and what they have to say should be substantially different from what ken is offering.
that makes sense? right? of course it does.
nope not in the world of the tories. what matters is that the person who stands against ken is a personality who will get the votes to see ken become a bitter runner up.
have a policy? don’t be silly it will just slow you down.

for those of you wondering why there is so little faith in politicians anymore i’ll give you a patastic clue: one of the reasons is we know that most of them are just in it for the job and don’t really believe in it any more. which would explain why some of the tory big dogs such as michael portillo declined to run, scared to lose. little conviction politics there, just cold hard calculation as to how it would affect them.

with the liberals wimping out what are the tories going to do?
hah never fear they have a plan. instead of appealing to the intellectual argument the tories are going straight for the reality talent show format. until july 16th it seems anyone can throw their hat in the ring, from this lot a short list will be drawn up. between august 3rd and september 26th the candidates on the short list will be out and about arguing why you should choose them. everyone on the london electoral roll will have a chance to vote in this london mayoral primary.
surely this just means that fans of ken will vote for the worst possible tory candidate?
for a party that is always going on about red tape this is surely a convoluted (and expensive) way of going about things. though i could be doing them a disservice by saying it is going to be expensive as the tories will pick up the tab for this city wide polling event, or will they leave that to the london taxpayer (perhaps we can have a london poll to decide that – “you decide…”
in essence the winner will not be the one with the best policies, but the one the votes like at that moment. so much for conviction politics.

francis maude, conservative party chairman, describes the timetable as “the beginning of the end of ken livingstone's london reign”.
no francis what it looks like we are going to get is a half baked process that provides the tories with a personality that might be nice enough to topple ken.
(feel free to suggest your london friendly candidate. i nominate frank bruno, he’d make a good fist of it… groan!)
but is that any better for democracy than ken running pretty much unopposed? i don’t think so.

london does deserve to have a serious mayoral debate and election, but if one of the parties reduces it to no more than a personality contest then they have already lost the argument even if they win the election.
perhaps it tells you all you need to know about cameron and his brand of tories and his brand of politics.

have to say though i am tempted to apply to be a candidate.