Today is election day in London, with 10 candidates vying to become London’s next Mayor.
No matter who you vote for, it matters that you vote! Your decision could make all the difference in a tight race.
Those who still remain undecided can review the candidates in the running, and visit their campaign pages through LondonSays’ dedicated section on the contenders.
Finally, for those awaiting results, the BBC is running a live service (with final results likely due in on Friday late afternoon), which you can find here.
With only four days to go until the vote on the 1st May, The Independent has run short interviews with the four main candidates on their aspirations for London.
I’ve highlighted the answers from each candidate as to why they want to be Mayor here. Click on their names to read the full interview:
I want to finish the things we’ve started in this term – get the Olympics delivered, build the new rail lines such as the East London Line Extension. And of course I want to save London from Tory barbarism.
Ken Livingstone, Labour Party
I want to make a difference to people’s lives. Boris and Ken are both wrong for London. I am the only mayoral candidate who can offer serious solutions to London’s problems.
Brian Paddick, Liberal Democrats
So that I can be the leader who finally gets to grips with the odious gang culture that claimed the lives of 27 kids last year. I want to champion Londoners’ right to decent transport, good housing, and a clean, green city.
Boris Johnson, Conservative Party
We want a greener and a more affordable London, and our policies, from lower public transport fares to free insulation, will save money and cut carbon emissions at the same time.
Sian Berry, Green Party
You can find more detailed information on the candidates and their policies on their websites, which we have listed here.
London Elects carries all the information you need should your polling card not have yet arrived.
The final debate of the Mayoral elections is to be held tonight in Cadogan Hall in Central London.
For those without tickets (most readers of this blog, I would imagine) you can watch it live on Sky News from 7.30pm.
Fellow think-tank the New Local Government Network today launched its latest publication: Glad to be GLA? Making London More Accountable.
The headline recommendation in the pamphlet is quite a shocking one, arguing that the London Mayor should be scrutinised by a London Leaders’ Council, comprising the 32 elected council leaders in Greater London.
Under these plans, the Mayor’s budget would be approved by a majority of council leaders, meaning that the Mayor must consider the outer boroughs in his plans for transport and development - something which the incumbent is often accused of not doing.
The council leaders would also have scrutiny powers for the LDA, the Met and TfL, whilst any new legislation for London would be driven by a special select committee of London MPs.
These plans would be estimated to save some £6.6million, and reduce the layers of Government in the Capital.
You can download the full report here.
LondonSays has today launched its Alternative Manifesto, a collection of essays by experts examining alternative ideas for London.
The first of two documents, this manifesto covers the London Economy, Transport, Crime, Sustainability, and Community Cohesion. A later publication will examine the Mayor’s role in Housing, promoting the Arts & Media, and the Olympic Legacy.
Written by experts in their fields and the team behind LondonSays, this document sets out an alternative vision for London, free from party-political concerns.
The papers comprising the Alternative Manifesto include:
- Renowned transport expert Christian Wolmar writing on a new direction for London transport.
- Conservative Party Special Advisor on Community Cohesion, Christina Dykes, writing about bringing London together.
- Jean Lambert MEP, Patron and Vice-President of the Greens/European Free Alliance on greening London.
- Karim Murji, Independent Member of the MPA on policing and crime in the capital.
- and Simon Fell of the LondonSays team writing on the London Economy.
Commenting on the launch of LondonSays’ Alternative Manifesto, Co-founder Simon Fell said:
“We are delighted to be launching this document with just two weeks to go before the Mayoral election. Whomever wins on 1st May needs to constantly refresh their ideas about how to keep London great, and this document provides a blueprint for them to follow.
“Our aim is to make LondonSays as open and accessible to all in the Capital as possible. We are committed to London, and are excited about tackling the challenges which lie ahead.”
You can download the Alternative Manifesto here (pdf download).
Dave Hill over at Comment Is Free has an excellent post on the state of the race thus far:
Frankly, I wouldn’t put a bean on any outcome. The only thing I feel fairly confident of - and have done since the start - is that Johnson will lose at least some support as we close in on polling day. Set-piece broadcast debates seem likely to help Livingstone most, as we saw on Newsnight on Tuesday.
People who’ve airily embraced the idea of a new, bright, shiny, funny face at city hall will hesitate when they have that stub of pencil in their hands and instead opt for hardened experience. But how many, and how much difference will they make? Search me.
You can find more here.
The London Paper ran an article promoting our iWant campaign on Wednesday, the text of which is below:
Say it on Facebook
by John Dunne
A FACEBOOK campaign has been launched in a bid to get more Londonders to vote in the Mayoral elections.
The iWant web network encourages voters to send in their wish list for the capital, which will be passed on to the policians as a “people’s manifesto”. The network has a Facebook entry where Londoners can share opinions on the candidates, including Ken Livingstone, Boris Johnson and Brian Paddick.
Among the experts involved in the online scheme is MP Simon Hughes who is writing an entry on the Olympics. Transport guru Christian Wolmar is also taking part.
The public manifesto - made up from the online responses - will be handed to the Mayoral candidates within the next two weeks. More than 100 members of the public have already joined the debate, with transport sparking the most hits.
Many have said that Tube workers should not strike because of the disruption to commuters’ lives.
Anyone wanting to have their opinion included should go to www.londonsays.org or email iwant@londonsays.org
We are very grateful to everyone who has responded to this article, and sent their ideas to us.
The first of our two manifesto documents for London launches next week - all the information about it will be posted here first.
The deadline for registering to vote is the 16th April 2008, in a week.
You can find out how to register - a very simple process - by following our simple guide here.
Remember, without voting your voice will not be heard. We at LondonSays encourage you to sign up and make a difference to London’s future.
With a little under a week to go before we launch our next publication - our mini-manifesto for London - we would like to flag up another London based website: www.votematch.co.uk.
Vote Match offers a service which compares your priorities to those of the mayoral candidates and lets you know which candidate’s policies best represent you. Certainly give it a go - you may find some interesting results!
Meanwhile, the Independent has been running an excellent series of profiles of the Mayor, Brian Paddick and Boris Johnson:
A fantastic overview of the three main candidates can be found here, whilst you can read about the policies of Ken Livingstone, Brian Paddick and Boris Johnson by clicking on their names.
Interestingly, two quite different newspapers today offer a similar assessment of the consequences of the Mayoral race.
The Guardian makes explicit the politics behind the race, placing it against the backdrop of a possible General Election:
“…defeat for gaffe-prone Johnson would now be seen as an unacceptable blow to David Cameron, whereas a loss for Livingstone - unthinkable six months ago - would be another setback for Gordon Brown’s stuttering administration.”
Meanwhile, the International Herald Tribune offers an outsider perspective of goings on in the capital, but still returns to the same theme:
“It’s a war by proxy,” said Tony Travers, director of the Greater London Group at the London School of Economics. “If Livingstone loses, the Conservatives will say, ‘Look, you can’t even hold on to the capital city: you’re doomed, an ex-government.’ But if Livingstone wins, Labour will say, ‘So much for the Tory revival; you people are hopeless.’ “
The results of this election are going to make a huge difference, not just to London and Londoners, but to the state of politics in this country.
The latest YouGov polling for the Evening Standard can be found here.
