Londoners vote again for their Lord Mayor tonight… and amazing as it may seem all these years after Maggie Thatchers demise, Red Ken Livingstone is up there amongst the front runners to win.
To be fair, no matter how many mistakes he’s made and how many illegitimate children he’s fathered, the opposition is such a sorry bunch he’d have to all bar out himself as a closet aristocrat to lose the race!
So who *are* the candidates? Well on the left is everybody’s favourite, Red Ken himself, once a ‘red hot socialist’, now back in the Labour fold. And in the same vein as many a long running soapie, his main opposition is a running conservative joke known as Boris Johnson, whose many gaffes have been relentlessly lampooned by the UK press. Between two of them… in a metaphorical sense at least… is former policeman Brian Paddick, who also happens to be gay.
One of these sorry bunch is soon to be reinstated as Lord Mayor… oops, my bad… did I say ‘reinstated? 🙂
Despite the appeal of his platform, I think we can discount Paddick without comment. However, I must be honest and report that Boris is nowhere near as bad as he’s made out. The fact he was editor of the Spectator for years indicates he is a man of some intelligence and political acumen. Whether it will be enough to unseat Ken is open to question of course.
Personally, despite Ken’s refusal to leave the trappings of office, and despite reneging on his promise to serve just one term, I think he’s a shoe in.
I assure you my assessment has nothing whatever to do with my desire to be able to write up an obscure reference to former Lord Mayor Dick Whittington in the form of “Your turn, turn again Livingstone… thrice Lord Mayor of London”.
Go Ken… give ’em hell! 😀
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