The London mayoral elections fall on Thursday May 1 this year, with Labour’s incumbent mayor Ken Livingstone facing a tough challenge from Tory stand-up comedian Boris Johnson and Liberal Democrat candidate Brian Paddick. Such is the highly multicultural and multinational population of London that even Australians on relatively temporary visas such as myself are allowed to vote; I plan to vote for Ken.The putrid fruit of Johnson’s campaign, which is running almost exclusively on the steam of Johnson’s slapstick celebrity, arrived in my mail slot just the other day. I thought it might be worth sharing.

For those who don’t have magical super-magnifying vision, Tory London Assembly candidate Kit Malthouse’s best arguments against re-electing Ken Livingstone appear to be: 

1) People who drive large, high-polluting “Chelsea tractors” around London – which probably has one of the best public transport systems in the world – shouldn’t pay an increased congestion charge.

2) A sixth runway at Heathrow is a bad idea. Ken isn’t running on any policy of expanding Heathrow further, but Kit still thinks it is a bad idea.

In a survey, Malthouse also highlights three “representative” Labour “policies” and asks residents if they are for or against the proposals. The policies are summarised on the survey in an extremely fair and balanced way, as you can see:

Sometimes politics really does want to make you vomit.