In slow and tentative steps towards becoming a serious electoral force, the Green Party’s Caroline Lucas was recently the first (and favourite) to bid for party leader. But she has already been criticised by others like Derek Wall. Can she offer discontented liberals and lefties with a credible home?

It may be a picture of an uncivil, rude, selfish society, but it is not a broken society. If this were America he would be absolutely crucified for not being patriotic about his own country. And yet, we’re not only falling for it, but the left has nothing even coherent to say in response.

It seems that an obscure New Labour speechwriter – hyped up as ‘a key ally of Tony Blair’, in a failed attempt to sex up the copy - has attacked Gordon Brown in a most unoriginal manner in a small circulation pointy-head magazine…

There is an article by John McDonnell published in yesterday’s Morning Star, which I feel at once encapsulates the reasons why people on the left feel a lingering affection for the Labour Party and also why that Party is in reality a no-goer. And indeed I think McDonnell himself is emblematic of that same duality.

Boris is enjoying a honeymoon as London Mayor, as Andrew Grice of The Independent writes on his politics blog.
Will it last? I fear that Boris Johnson’s critics are already repeating the mistake they made during the campaign…

Not long after I moved to Hackney, I witnessed an armed robbery. From a range of about three feet, the fact that the robber was a crackhead was as obvious as the hammer and kitchen knife he was waving about.

A few years later, my partner and baby daughter were abducted outside my house. (more…)

Bruce Anderson says Boris is a libertarian. And yet the Sun says London’s new mayor is planning to ban consuming alcohol on the tube. Whatever will the libertarian right say now??

Until very recently I would broadly have fallen into the category of the ‘Labour Left’. I was never totally comfortable with attempts by sections of the left to pull away from the Labour Party, which I had been brought up since childhood to see as “my” party.
Now, I think a different strategy or thinking may be required.

I thought Boris Johnson was commendably gracious in his acceptance speech Friday night (when you’re a winner you can afford to be). But the best we can hope for from him is that he doesn’t mess up on what Livingstone has begun. It’s hard to imagine Bojo being so brave or imaginative in his own right.

So, it’s the weekend after the week before, and an alliance of gameshow fans, 4×4 drivers, suburban curtain-twitchers, BNP second-preferences, Labourphobes and the thoroughly fed-up, mostly from places that don’t even count as London, have foisted a Thatcherite mayor on our generally left-leaning city. (more…)

I try and be an optimist, so here goes…

1) Closeness of the race says to me that right-wing newspapers have little impact. Despite the combined endorsement of The Sun, Daily Mail, Telegraph, Times and Evening Boris, there was only 6% between them. I wish we had better exit polling in this country because I bet most voted for Boris on the basis of change, not al-Qaradawi or Lee Jasper of Hugo Chavez.

01:52am Boris said:

On a more serious note, Johnson said: “I do not for one moment believe that this election shows that London has been transformed overnight into a Conservative city.”

But he said he thought the result did show that the Conservatives could be “trusted with the greatest, most cosmopolitan and generous-hearted city” in the world.

He got the first bit right. He still needs to prove the second part.

LIBERAL CONSPIRACY CALLS FOR KEN LIVINGSTONE
… on the basis a wide range of conversations we’ve had throughout the day with people in the field and with senior insiders… and my mates from the pub.
The live-blogging is over now. Damn that was a boring election!

Dave Hill finds that Libdem’r Simon Hughes, “urged voters to cast their second preference for someone who had served London already”. He’s advocating Paddick as first choice of course, but does that mean Ken should be no. 2?

There are many very good reasons not to vote for Boris Johnson, but most likely we will wake up on Friday to that result.
But if he does win, Boris will be told he can not be himself for the next two years, so as not to imperil Dave’s Downing Street bid.

During the weeks of the election campaign that’s eaten my life, I’ve striven to be fair to Boris Johnson. There was, though, never much chance I’d vote for him. That said, I’ve also been testing my loyalty to Ken Livingstone. I believe his various critics, including those with roots on the left, have over-spun or overstated their cases against him, but that isn’t to say they lack all force.
Nevertheless, here are the reasons why I’m choosing Ken.

Two recent politic stories highlight just how rapidly remaining differences between the only two political parties in Britain capable of forming governments continue to erode. First is the government strategy to resolve child poverty and the second is Ken Livingstone’s attempt to build a big-tent coalition.

Richard Littlejohn, that paragon of enlightened thinking, wants his readers to vote Boris. Almost as bad as a BNP endorsement? Via SB.

Ken Livingstone has published an open letter on his website with the aim of wooing Libdems by pointing out how closely his policies match theirs, in contrast to Boris Johnson…

BBC’s Question Time ‘London Mayoral election special’ was unedifyingly vacuous, and Brian Paddick failed to convince - either with his pitch or with his claim that Boris and Ken are two sides of the same coin.