at the bottom of the barrel, Ken

Mild Ken revival continues:

Ken Livingstone has edged ahead of his Tory rival, Boris Johnson, in the race to become the next mayor of London, according to an opinion poll released yesterday.

The survey conducted by Ipsos Mori puts Livingstone on 53% - six points ahead of Johnson on 47% - among those certain to vote in next Thursday's election, once crucial second preferences are taken into account. It is Livingstone's biggest lead since the campaign started.

It might have been a mistake for his opponents to personalise the campaign so much. Aside from mobilising hardcore Ken-istas, that technique disassociated him with Gordon Brown at exactly the right time to make the campaign about Labour rather than Livingstone.

As for Typhoid Gordon, I don’t know. He went from statesman to cretin in no time flat. I wouldn’t be hugely surprised to see him metastasizing into a statesman again, especially if Labour don’t do as badly next week as everybody expects. Political journalism seems to have lost all but the most tenuous contact with the object of its reporting. and the hacks may decide to build him up again out of boredom as much as anything else.

And yet, if Labour does chew through the bottom of the barrel and Brown is considered to be unsupportable then how about Livingstone for PM? He’s the only one they have left with a real administrative track record, political success and name recognition. I’ve rehearsed my personal objections to him before, but offhand I can’t think of anyone else with the remotest chance of getting them back in again. Labour really have no-one else.

Comments

[Tom]

Good idea, except that Ken has absolutely no interest in the job (or indeed much outside the M25) and has stated that as far as he's concerned, the Mayor is it. Mind you, he's changed his mind before. He's also got rather too many enemies within Labour and age isn't on his side. His power base is also in inner city London, which isn't relevant in the marginal areas you unfortunately need to win over to be PM.

However, on the bright side, what should have been happening over the last few years is that a lot of smart technocrats will have been getting hands-on experience in a Labour (or at least left-wing) administration that demonstrably works, and they might well trickle back into the national party when the ineptitude crisis finally does for the old guard. Particularly if Boris can't hang on to the key men, they might well fancy a crack at a national job. Many of them will have had experience of beating up the Civil Service which could come in handy.

[Chris Williams]

Denham.

[Nick L]

Perhaps the political journos will just take a liking to someone else at the next labour conference. Aparrently many tory delegates didn't realise that Cameron's speech at the 2005 conference had left them in awe until they were informed that evening on the news...

[ejh]

Quite.