Forum Topic

Boris' lead up to 13%

Boris' poll lead has increased to 13% according to a YouGov poll for today's Evening Standard.Boris 49% (Up 2) Livingstone 36% (Down 1) Brian Paddick 10% (Unchanged) Sian Berry (Green Party) 2% (Unchanged) Others 3%This is the biggest lead for Boris yet. (When second preferences are allocated Boris is still ahead of Livingstone by 56% to 44%.

David Giles ● 6788d13 Comments

Opinion polls are notoriously inaccurate. The only one that counts is on 1st May.

James de Vivenot ● 6788d

JamesThat of course is true.It is interesting to note however that this You Gov Poll was conducted before the revelations regarding Livingstone's 5 children by 3 different women without the benefit of matrimony were published.Those revelations are bound to lose Livingstone the support of Christians, Muslims, Jews and others who view such behaviour as inappropriate or immoral.

David Giles ● 6788d

In your dreams - suggest you get a copy of Andrew Rawnsley's article in yesterday's Observer. A sample:"The Tory M.P. for Henley is not-over-burdened with qualifications to run London when all Boris has done is preside over (I hesitate to say edited) a right-wing magazine, Ken can legitimately ask if his rival is up to the job"."Competence is his (Ken's) best card  also because it is an area where his rival is terribly vulnerable. The Johnson campaign has come to resemble that chilling 1962 movie 'The Manchurian Candidate'. The Presidential candidate you will remember is the brain-washed puppet of a foreign power. In the case of Boris, the foreign power is Lynton Crosby, the right-wing Australian strategist who has taken over his campaign. The Antipodean's primary task is stopping his candidate from being his real gaffe-prone self. 'Boris has been bound and gagged for the duration', says one senior Tory. The trouble is that muting the real Boris is that it leaves him with little to say at all beyond glibberies such as promising to resurrect the Routemaster bus............Boris spouts crack-down slogans about crime put in his mouth by his Atipodean hard man. They fall unconvincingly from the mouth of Boris, because the words are not his but those of his Aussie ventroloquist"."As Boris was clowning from the platform at the last Tory conference, there was one priceless moment, he was bing watched over a video link by the next speaker Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Governor of California could not believe what he was hearing  - muttering to his aides:'Who is this guy? He's fumbling all over the place'. Clowning that may come over as endearingly eccentric to a British audience does not translate so well to the rest of the world to whom the mayor is London's face and voice. The prospect of a Boris mayor scares many Tories even more than it does Labour people. Ken needs to convince the capital that it is better to stick with the old devil they know that take a risk on a clowning chancer that they will not really get to know until it is too late".

Vanessa Smith ● 6788d

"Those revelations are bound to lose Livingstone the support of Christians, Muslims, Jews and others who view such behaviour as inappropriate or immoral."But presumably Christians like yourself would also regard as inappropriate and immoral the behaviour of Boris Johnson in having an affair with Petronella Wyatt (who became pregnant by him and had an abortion) and then lying about it to his party leader.  I imagine that sort of behaviour would lose him your support.  So who are you going to vote for, David?  Which mayoral candidate has the right policies and moral standards that earn your support?

Richard Jennings ● 6788d

Having watched the BBC local news coverage of the coming election tonight - I am sad that the only people in the race for this position are Boris, Ken and Brian - the others do not get any of this free publicity. I don't think I heard them mention Sian's name?  :-(

Sarah Felstead ● 6788d

This is 2008 and I don't believe the majority of people are that tiny minded, as long as politicians don't preach at people and hold themselves up as some moral guardian like John Major did whilst at the same time enjoying rumpy-pumpy with the fair and fragrant Edwina, then their private lives are their own.

Vanessa Smith ● 6788d

Will Johnson's drug revelations hurt him with the various communities in London.

Neil Chippendale ● 6787d

Sadly, I think many people in London are in the position of desperately wanting to get rid of Ken and his corrupt cronyism, but can't see a viable alternative. I can't bring myself to vote for Ken with his anti-semitic, anti-motorist, anti-small business, anti-working class, pro-islamist, green bandwagon jumping, crony financing, trotskyite approach, but I can't see a viable alternative. Disenfranchised again!!!!(And before someone tells me that at least he has improved London's transport - that was one of the positive spins put on Hitler by his apologists - "At least he made the trains run on time")

Mick Brent ● 6787d

MickMussolini made the trains run on time.  Hitler promoted the "people's car".  The Duce was clearly more conscious of the Green vote than his old mucker, but forgot he didn't need it as he'd abolished elections anyway.Seriously though, having followed the various Ken v Boris threads here and on Chiswick W4 one thing which leaps out is the way in which the baneful influence of cronyism in our politics is either ignored or approved of by a certain type of individual.Despite having voted for Ken in 2000 when he first stood, and having been assessed by an internet survey as having views on individual issues which on aggregate are closer to Livingstone's than to those of his rivals, I cannot bring myself to vote for a party which is so up itself and so contemptuous and distrusting of anybody outside its own hallowed ranks.I fear I have become the person I always used to rail against - the voter who casts his vote mindful only of what he is rejecting, with little interest in what replaces it just so long as it does.

Phil Andrews ● 6787d

NeilBoris has strongly condemned the use of drugs and regets having experimented with them in his youth. Most members of the Labour Cabinet have also confessed to taking drugs in their youth.

David Giles ● 6787d

You're right Phil - I mixed up my dictators!!I feel similarly. Having, in my case, voted with Labour my entire adult life (except when I broke ranks to vote against continued membership of the EEC in 1975), I now feel so betrayed by New Labour and so unenthralled by the alternatives, that I feel totally disenfranchised and can only vote negatively instead of positively.

Mick Brent ● 6787d

I'd have more time for all of them if they'd just for one moment consider decriminalisation as a possible alternative to slinging shedloads of money at this problem that just gets worse.

Vanessa Smith ● 6787d

There is case for saying that personal use of certain drugs shoould be decriminalised so that users can be identified, helped and treated for their addictions rather than criminalised.However, I think that supplying, selling or trading in drugs without a pharmacist's licence should remain illegal.Those who make a living out of causing misery must face the full rigours of the law.

David Giles ● 6780d