Champagne at City Hall today.

Perhaps you should point out that the trade union/affiliate result was about the same as members:

Ken:
32.97 % – members (50% of electoral college)
35.634 % – affiliates (50% of electoral college)

Oona:

17.03 % – members (50% of electoral college)
14.366 % – affiliates (50% of electoral college)

3 cheers for the return of Lee Jasper and all Ken’s other divisive cronies!

Hip Hip!…. *silence*

There are many criticisms to be made of Ken Livingstone:

1. His support for the invasion of Afghanistan and the bombing of Kosovo

2. His support for scabbing a while ago

3. His support for ID cards (now changed his position)

4. His support for the police after they had shot someone in the head several times and then lied about the circumstances.

Nevertheless, I am glad he has beaten Oona King who is even worse.

Champagne at City Hall today.

Ken poses more of a threat than Oona does.

Echo Claire French @2. Is someone unhappy at LibCon towers or something?

Oona still has a lot to offer Labour, but I think she was ahead at the start here. She allowed Ken to define her campaign by focussing it on him rather than her, I think. I’m sure lessons will learned though.

It also has to be said that a fair chunk of Ken’s support will be because of name recognition, and because he is widely recognised among left of centre people as having been a very good mayor policy-wise.

His victory speech was very good, about the cuts and what they will do to outer London. It will be crucial to win in these boroughs, and Ken’s speech today was dripping with intent to that effect.

Boris Johnson started cutting before the Government even came into office. Now he has added Lynton Crosby to his team.

Boris should be the first to be given the boot out of the lot.

“Champagne at City Hall today.”

Nothing new then……..from the current Champagne Charlies trying to run London.

The fact is that Ken brings a large personal vote to his candidacy. And I don’t think that those who really detest Ken woudl turn out for Oona.

Ken is just more likely to win the real election.

Considering the timing of the election (2012) Ken has a solid chance. We’ll be two year into coalition rule by then and the shine will be off, London is a left-leaning city anyway (in fact London was one of the regions Labour ‘won’ in the election) and the cuts will be in full swing, but they won’t have had enough time to positively benefit the economy (if they do at all). In other words, voters are likely to be angry at the government and want to lash out in any way they can. Ken requires a 3% swing to win. That’s very doable.

Who really gives a stuff?
We in London have heard enough of Ken and Boris on the likes of LBC radio to realise that neither of them are inspiring.
Ken drones on and on on his Saturday show. Who cares?
All those who a couple of years ago were running with the ”Borris is a racist” line, have shut up about that – and should be ashamed for getting on board with that slur.
It was a mainstream accusation before the last election, and was obviously not true.