Ken cuts Boris poll lead to 2%

With reports today that Ken Livingstone has cut Boris Johnson's poll lead to just two percent, I took a look at the history of these polls in the lead up to May's election.

You can see that we're now within the margin for error and that while Johnson has kept his neck in front, Ken is snapping at his heels as we have just two weeks to go:

With Labour having a strong lead over the Conservatives nationally and more so in London, it remains to be seen whether Ken can take advantage of that and get himself back into City Hall.

What Ken needs to do to win

My letter has been published in today's Evening Standard about what Ken Livingstone can do to win:

You get to read the others too as I've not got the inclination to spend my afternoon on Photoshop.

The problem with personality: Ken V Boris

The ongoing spat between relatively wealthy Ken and very wealthy Boris about who has paid tax properly is distracting us all from what each man is proposing to do to our city. That suits a Boris frightened by Ken's low fares policy. This has resonated with voters and brought his old rival back into contention. Boris' manifesto lacks substance and ambition, his vision for London is underwhelming, yet he was very forthright in campaigning for a cut to the top rate of income tax, which will benefit him by many £1000s annually.

Ken needs to focus on policy to win, Boris on personality and negativity. Ken has become an easy having collected an army of both fans and enemies over several decades at the top of London politics.

London is generally a Labour city, yet polling suggests that Ken is under-performing Labour's London lead. Again, this is down to personality. People like his policies even when they don't like him. Ken could once lay claim to having one of the biggest personalities in politics, yet he is up against an even bigger one in Boris. That isn’t necessarily Ken’s fault, but he needs to fight harder to seize the political agenda back if he is to win.

London mayoral race in social media

I thought it would be good to see how the social web commentariat is expressing itself towards the London mayoral race between incumbent Boris Johnson and previous mayor, Ken Livingstone. When we last looked at this Johnson was consistently getting more buzz than his Labour rival. Ken was only able to push above Boris after he made some "controversial" comments in an interview with the New Statesman. 

Looking at the number of mentions for each man across Twitter, blogs and forums we can see that Ken is now consistently jostling for position with Boris. High profile campaigns both for and against each candidate and the looming election date has slightly eroded the incumbency lead that Boris had held several months ago: 

In February both candidates had a net positive sentiment towards them in social media, with Boris having more detractors and fans, with feeling towards Ken more neutral. Just a month away from the election sentiment towards Boris has dipped, with him now receiving more negative than positive comments: 

Ken's results have markedly improved. He is now looking at a net positive result of 8%, against Boris' -2%. This suggests that the social media commentariat isn't swayed by the high profile negative media that the Labour candidate has been receiving recently.

Does it mean Ken will win? No, but it does give a useful insight into what the social web thinks about the two men in the bruising personality clash.

Boris Johnson ignores the suburbs & Ken gets a kicking

Further news of Boris Johnson ignoring his fans in the London suburbs fails to have dented his popularity. At a time when the Tory Party is consolidating a lead over Labour in the opinion polls despite doing lots of unpopular things, mayoral candidate Johnson is following suit. The latest mayoral opinion poll puts him ahead of Labour rival Ken Livingstone on both first and. crucially, second preferences.

An example of Johnson's "relaxed" attitude to his suburban vote was demonstrated by his ignoring of a 3,000 name petition against plans for a high rise development on top of Twickenham station. He approved the development, despite Richmond Council, run by the Tories stating that they believe in "low density" developments. Johnson himself has opposed/said what he thought people wanted to hear Richmond Council's planned development of the nearby riverside side as being "inappropriate" for the area. He can't have it both ways.

Or can he? Just like the Tories nationally, saying and doing unpopular things seems to only increase their poll position. YouGov's poll today put Johnson ahead, 54% to Livingstone's 46% in the race for mayor. Today's Guardian ICM poll also put the Tories ahead by three points over Labour, with 39%. Perhaps this suggests that while unpopular, the Tories are trusted more than Livingstone and Labour more generally at the moment.

Polls and election results often come down to gut feel and who looks more like a leader than what a candidate is actually proposing to do. Both Johnson and Livingstone have as many fans as enemies which means there will be more changes in support right up to election day, with both bucking national (Tories more popular than Labour) and local (Labour more popular than Tories in London) trends.

Better off with Ken bus to tour London

Ken Livingstone today announced that he will tour every London borough in his "fare deal" bus to promote his "better of with Ken" election message.

 I have only got one question about this: how much does this bus cost and how does that compare to Boris Johnson's new Routemasters, the most expensive buses in the world?

Professor Pound's lesson on Ken's Fare Deal

Ken Livingstone's team have today launched a snappy video highlighting the benefits of his "fare deal":

Boris Johnson has some nerve

Reading mayor Boris Johnson's quotes in tonight's Evening Standard that "for too long our transport network suffered from waste and neglect" make sm y blood boil. How he has the nerve to make such claims I don't know. When we talk mayors the previous Labour mayor delivered an unprecedented expansion of our transport infrastructure. 

This mayor, Boris himself, stagnated it by cutting future projects such as the Cross River Tram. Crossrail and the London Overground were nothing to do with him. He has a tough fight on his hands if he thinks he can fight Ken Livingstone on transport. He is better off sticking to other topics where his Labour challenger is weaker, such as personality.

Boris burns your cash and ignores the future

The London Mayor has a good amount of power to change the city through a range of management, financial and infrastructure levers. The big three issues for Londoners often focus on crime, transport and housing. Wit the latter two the mayor has to plan for the future because what happens in their four year terms often doesn't bear to fruition until much later.

Just look at current mayor Boris Johnson's introduction of a new "Routemaster" style bus. His four years are almost up and we haven't yet seen any on the road, though craftily we will just in time for the forthcoming election. Taking a deeper look at Boris' mayoralty and his claimed transport achievements and we see a celebration of many projects that he had very little to do with.

The expansion of London Overground was set in motion by Ken Livingstone as was the major East London regeneration resulting from the Olympics. That happened because Livingstone planned ahead. Unlike the current mayor. Boris has left us with very little to help sate the demands of a growing city in the future. A loss making cycle scheme and loss making cable car, together with the world's most expensive bus.

That brings us to Crossrail. Boris and his Tory pals confirmed it when in office, but the project was planned and budgeted for by both a Labour mayor and government. When Ken says he will plan for Crossrail 2 and a Crossrail 3, I believe him because he has delivered in the past. All we are likely to get from Boris is a "yeah me too" or "how about we introduce a sponsored air balloon system that won't cost taxpayers any money."

Whoever wins in May has to think beyond the next election and be adult enough to think beyond politics. Otherwise their role as mayor is to tinker around the edges and leave London ill-prepared for the future.

Ken Livingstone versus Boris Johnson in social media

An analysis of social media conversations mentioning London mayoral candidates Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone shows the Labour man catching up on his Tory rival, much as he has done in the opinion polls recently, overtaking Boris by 2%, after trailing by 8% last summer.

The chart above shows the number of times each was mentioned across blogs, Twitter, forums, Facebook, YouTube and in news blogs and comments since September 2011.

You can see that Boris generally leads his Labour rival, with a remarkable peak in early October when he addressed Tory party conference and failed to say anything of significance about his plans for London.

Livingstone picked up in the last few days after a widely hyped interview with the New Statesman, after which Tory MPs demanded an apology after the mayoral hopeful stated that their party was "riddled with gays."

Looking beyond conversation volumes towards the sentiment of what is being said about the two men, is it a positive, neutral or negative comment, also shows the race, in social media, to be neck and neck.

Boris Johnson gains slightly more positive (green) than negative (red) comments, by a margin of +7%:

Ken Livingstone has more fans in social media than Boris in the last few months, according to our analysis:

Of course, the only statistic that matters is the election in May. What this shows is that this will be the close fight we all expect it to be and that despite Boris' celebrity status, Ken's attraction has far from wilted.

Boris Johnson finally works out what being a mayor is all about

The first phase of Boris Johnson's mayoralty was characterised by him doing very little. He wanted the mayor to spend less and do less. He cancelled many of previous mayor Ken Livingstone's planned transport projects and drastically cut the London Development Agency. This was all part of his plan to give Londoners "more bang for their buck."

The second half of Boris' reign has been characterised by a series of expensive, loss making projects, such as the cycle hire and cable car. Now it looks like he is starting to panic by claiming he will take over the running of train services in London.

I actually think that would be a good idea as the benefits of Transport for London management of the London Overground lines in north and east London have seen huge service improvements and growth in usage. I wonder whether Boris would be any good at it though when not long ago he claimed the whole concept unworkable.

I also struggle to believe Boris would do it if he won again. Not only did he scrap some of Livingstone's projects when he got in, such as the Cross River Tram, but he also failed to implement many of his own, such as a tram for Oxford Street. The latter was perhaps a daft idea anyway given the disruption that Crossrail construction has brought the area.

This also shows that Boris is running a reactive campaign. He is responding to the Livingstone proposals to cut fares by trying to offer his version of the same pledge. He is trying to fight Livingstone on his home turf. Boris has woken up to the responsibility of the mayoralty but rather too late.

Ken V Boris: too close to call, dirty, exciting

After last week's YouGov poll put Ken Livingstone ahead of incumbent mayor Boris Johnson in the race to lead London, LBC and ComRes have released their own poll. This again gives the former mayor a slender lead of 51% to 49%.

This is remarkable for a candidate who lost the mayoralty in 2008 after looking tired, disinterested and didn't focus on the issues mattering most to voters, as his rival Johnson managed to. As the likes of Adam Bienkov point out, that position is now reversed. Johnson is the one talking about protecting bankers, while Livingstone is talking about the rising cost of living and transport fares.

Interestingly, Livingstone is under performing against Labour's expected polling in London, while Johnson is more popular than the Tories. Despite that, Labour's candidate will be far happier as we enter the last 100 days of the campaign.

The Back Boris campaign is in a bit of a mess. Complacency about victory must have evaporated, along with his poll lead. I quick scan of London news sites and blogs shows a campaign not in control, clutching at straws or making false claims.

• Mayor Watch today reports that Back Boris is claiming Johnson began and implemented London Overground, when in fact, as the TfL website points out, Livingstone started it in 2007, a year before the buffoon took power
• Left Foot Forward highlights that Johnson used his Telegraph column to blame young people and their lack of skills for sky high youth unemployment
• Boris Watch notes that Johnson's primary vanity project, his new bus, is getting ever more expensive, with another prototype being ordered at a staggering £547,000

It is all getting very political. The first new bus for London is due on our streets in May 2012, election month. TfL are running an advertising campaign to highlight improvements over the last three years, which conveniently coincides with BJ's mayoral term. 

Our old pal and former Livingstone nemesis, Andrew Gilligan, now at the Telegraph, is at it again with a regular column of Livingstone-loathing. Fortunately fewer potential Labour voters read the Telegraph than the Evening Standard, his former home, so his distortive effect may be limited this time.  

What does this leave us with? A content that is too close to call, will inevitably turn dirty and one that will be great to watch.

Ken versus Boris: too close to call

I'd been intrigued to see what the latest opinion polling thought about the impending London mayoral election, incumbent Boris Johnson, versus former mayor Ken Livingstone, after last summer's polls suggested a commanding lead for BJ. Today's YouGov poll puts Ken 2% ahead, 51-49.

A surprisingly large number of Labour voters had previously said they'd vote Tory last June, though that has now fallen. That suggests that Livingstone's unpopularity among some after a long career has waned. That could be a result of his powerful campaign to cut transport fares. 

Conservative Home's Tim Montgomery recently warned Tories not to let their previous poll lead lure them into a false sense of security, dubbing it "dangerously complacent". That message will have come shattering home today. For the Tories, with BJ more popular than his party, the focus must be personality. Their man picks up votes because he is well known and seen as likeable. People seem to put to one side that they don't think he understands the issues. For example, only 13% see Boris as someone who is in touch with the concerns of ordinary people, compared to 40% for Ken. 

For Labour, the election has to be focused on the Tories. Boris is a Tory, not an independent. He is someone who makes the cost of living in London higher and isn't going to protect Londoners from the worst of a possible recession. 

Ken and his Labour team look like they will stick to that message. They should as it has worked so far. 

Ken Livingstone dubs Borish Johnson a "pickpocket"

In the latest swipe of what is developing into a rather juicy personality clash, Ken Livingstone is today running advertising in the Evening Standard dubbing his rival Boris Johnson as a pickpocket:

This highlights the rising cost of using public transport in London since Boris came to power in 2008. This includes a single bus fare increasing by 50%.

Oh mayor, where art thou?

Given the volume of important and difficult events in London this week one would expect the mayor to be in-situ, in charge and on top of his brief. Unfortunately London has Boris Johnson as mayor. He is skiing in the Alps so hasn't been on hand to provide leadership for London through a difficult week.



The week he put transport fares up again, with the single bus fare now up 50% since he came to power in 2008, to pay for his lovely new bus. He was ignoring the fast shrinking pockets of ordinary Londoners by skiing. Mind you, his six figure "chicken feed" salary from the Daily Telegraph for his column must help, even just a bit.

Two people were finally sent down for the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993. He eventually put out a statement but was slow off the mark.

Many Londoners want to know whether Boris really cares about London. On this week's behaviour I can only conclude that he has other things  more important things on his mind.

Where has all the money gone Boris?

Thousands of London commuters were met on their way to work this morning by two things: another round of jaw-dropping fare increases from mayor Boris Johnson and an alternative offer from Labour's campaign team. According to the campaign and quoted by BBC, 500,000 leaflets were distributed.

Key to the campaign is that Boris as mayor is making life worse for Londoners in an already tough economic environment. Under Boris fares have gone up between 20% for a weekly zones 1-6 travelcard and 50% for a single Oyster bus fare.

Boris's riposte is that the extra fare revenue is there to pay for tube improvements. This isn't entirely true as Transport for London has built up hefty reserves in the last few years, £728m according to the Evening Standard.

So the key question must be why Boris wants to continue hitting Londoners in the pocket with a stealth tax rise when he doesn't have to?

Does a social site extend your campaign reach?

To much comment among the Labour twitterati Ken Livingstone yesterday launched his social campaigning site Your Ken. Building on the social media success of Barack Obama's 2008 campaign has been the holy grail of political campaigning everywhere else since. does Your Ken do the trick?

Other attempts to create new political social networking sites have failed because they haven't been better than Facebook or Twitter. They also failed because people didn't follow and use the sites. That led to sites such as Labour's Members Net being little more than empty shells. In attempting to draw younger members together through social networks local groups have preferred to create their own Facebook groups or to create a sense of belonging through Twitter hashtags, such as #labourdoorstep.

Whether Your Ken becomes another empty shell or not depends on whether there is enough reason for people to dwell on the site. Will there be enough exclusive content? Will activists be able to interact in a way that they are not able to elsewhere? Will activists want to compete for the prize of the leading activist?

Even if all that happens what may not happen is that Your Ken opens up his campaign to anyone who wasn't already interested. If the site can enthuse new activists and get more out of existing activists it will have been a success.

Gaining the London mayoralty might not be the same status as President of the United States but to a Labour supported denied power nationally it would be a great start.

What has Boris Johnson actually achieved?

Mayor Boris Johnson is in campaign mode and is wasting no time in telling us all about his achievements. Unfortunately his "achievements" are not that at all, as has been widely pointed out.

BJ is claiming credit for Crossrail, the tube upgrade and obviously the cycle hire scheme. All of these schemes were under way well before his election in 2008. He also claims credit for the Olympic park, again something that has been finished while he has been in power but was secured by the previous mayor, Ken Livingstone.

As the race for London (mayor) 2012 hots up I wonder how many more half truths BJ will be peddling? Quite why he tries to cling on to power so hard when he does nothing with it is beyond me. It all seems quite pointless, much like his mayoralty.

Ken for mayor?

Ken Livingstone's weekend Politics Show interview gave a taste of the arguments and attacks that will become both more prominent and prevalent as we head towards next year's mayoral election in London.

The Tories will attack and will make it personal. Having been at the top of Labour's London politics for around the same number of years that I have been alive, Ken has a history of achievements and also (perceived) failures. His opponents will attack him and will be quick to highlight that he has already been rejected by London's voters before.

At the Labour mayoral hustings I went to Ken was forthright in stating his campaign would focus on opposing Tory cuts. This will get him so far in picking up votes from anti-Tories and perhaps some from those who deserted him in 2008. Will it be enough? I'm not sure, the media attacks will be strong and will reinforce negative sentiment against him.

Ken was a hate figure for many in 2008 and was tired. To win he needs to get his enthusiasm and energy back. Otherwise he may be too easy to cast off. He says he suffered at association with a then unpopular Labour government. This presents the interesting contrast with Boris Johnson having to fend off attacks of association with an increasingly unpopular Tory government. As Alastair Campbell tweeeted me: the election depends on that - together with Ken having enough energy to convince London he has new ideas.

Ken has a good record, much better than that of the incumbent. Ken has been accused of being a (former) Zone 1 mayor. This is unfair and Ken points out his initiative of neighbourhood policing that gave the same levels of police coverage to all parts of London. Buses got better in the suburbs, particularly night buses. This is something I noticed having grown up in zone 6. Fares were (then) as affordable as they have ever been in London and Ken will seek to do that again. I'd hope that was possible in the face of significant central government cuts though I'm not sure. Having built up a £1.2b of reserves he would use them to protect Londoners from the worst of government cuts.

Fair fares and no cuts to front-line policing will be his flagship policies. These will undoubtedly be popular. That is the easy part. The hard part is convincing a hostile media who have built up several decades of pent up opposition to Ken Livingstone .

East London Line to Highbury and Islington

The East London Line began running to Highbury and Islington today. This means that I might start to socialise with some of my acquaintances from South London. Not only will it help me get around London it also illustrates a point about political planning.

Boris Johnson unveiled the extension today but it is actually the work of former Labour mayor Ken Livingstone. The new East London Line forms part of his vision for an orbital railway for London. This plan was formed during his first term but has only opened with one year left of Johnson's term. That shows how long it takes for transformational projects like this to come to fruition.



That mayor Johnson has ensured that there are no plans for any similar projects in London at the moment we will have to wait a long time before anything else like this improves the lives of Londoners again.  Crossrail wasn't Boris' to scrap. This leaves me slightly worried that there isn't a sustainable plan for keeping London moving in years to come. At least not with the Tories in charge there won't be.