Guy Beres

“Red” Ken Livingstone’s reign as Mayor of London has come to an end over the last couple of days, with Tory candidate Boris Johnson easily winning the mayoral poll on May 1. Despite Johnson polling quite strongly in the weeks leading up to the election, I admit to being fairly surprised by the result. I did not really believe that Johnson was a serious candidate. His high profile background as a former satirical game show host and his often edgy forays into “humorous” wordplay have made him a star among the wealthy inner city set, but controversy still lingers. It is indeed odd to think that somebody who once thought nothing of using the term “piccaninny” to refer to African people is now the mayor of one of the most multiracial and cosmopolitan cities of the world. I am not sure if this reflects a magnanimous willingness of Londoners to forgive racism, an increasingly bitter dislike of Ken Livingstone’s more machiavallian tendencies or the modern political world’s obsession with celebrity. Possibly, at least in part, a combination of the three.

Strangely, at least based on what I have seen thus far, much of the media coverage of the London mayoral race and the associated council elections has been presented through the rubrik of Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s trials and tribulations. The dismissal of Livingstone and the installment of Johnson in London has taken a back seat to the question of what this means for the leadership of Gordon Brown. To be honest, I am not sure how much can be read into it. It goes without saying that if an election was held tomorrow, it would be a brave Labour supporter indeed who would put money on a victory for Brown. On the other hand, there is still something a shadow of an expectation out there that sooner or later, the Prime Minister is going to shake off the cobwebs and punch through the current malaise besetting the Labour Party. Whether this latest setback proves to be the straw that breaks the back of this malaise remains to be seen.

In any case, London now has a new mayor, and it is a man who several conservative commentators have described as someone unfit for the job, and the infamous British National Party’s second choice in the mayoral race. Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson has a lot to prove. London will need to have the new, uncontroversial, spin doctored Boris of the mayoral election campaign holding the reins, rather than the toff-oriented comic wit of years past. If that old, more popular (among some) Boris returns, things could get a bit ugly.

ELSEWHERE: Charlie Brooker provided a comical summary for The Guardian as to why Johnson is a dubious choice.

Tags: Boris Johnson, Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 4th, 2008 at 10:12 pm and is filed under UK Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.