Vote for London

[ciphergoth]

I just can't stand the thought that this blithering idiot could be elected Mayor of London in less than three weeks time, and managing a budget of over £30 BILLION pounds. I'm so alarmed I've signed up to get involved in Ken's campaign, and I invite you to do the same if you're as alarmed as me. If you think that Johnson can't win, I invite you to put your money where your mouth is: Betfair are offering roughly 2:1 odds against a Livingstone victory.

The polls seem to indicate that this election will come down to a handful of votes in the second round, so a small contribution can make an enormous difference.

Join me in campaigning against Boris Johnson and for Ken Livingstone

Make sure you're registered to vote - there's only four days left!

Comments

[battlekitty.livejournal.com]

Stupid question, but: If you're on the electoral role, do you have to do anything extra? It doesn't look like it, but I'm not 100% sure...

At some point in the next 3 months I have to learn this stuff, I think. There will be a test at the end of it :)

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

If you don't have a polling card by now then go to London Elects and follow the instructions!

[battlekitty.livejournal.com]

*sigh* Time to ring the council again...

[wechsler.livejournal.com]

Boris increasingly looks to me like a hangover in need of a drink.

I'm baffled that so many people seem inclined to vote for him.

[ludy]

very much with you in spirirt but the reson i'm not registaerd to vote in tht election is that i don't live in london. Being contantly told to regisatar gets a little wearing ;)

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I'll stop reminding people to register once the deadline passes, promise :-)

[biog.livejournal.com]

I don't live in London any more, but what about Brian Paddick? He seems well qualified with his head screwed on reasonably well. Although I do think that Ken Livingstone has done a damm fine job of running London so far.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Sure, quite a few folk I know will be putting Paddick as their first preference. However after that the runoff will be between Livingstone and Johnson, so it's vital that Ken get that second vote.

[pir.livejournal.com]

Went out of my way to make sure I was registered to vote (a few days before my polling card arrived anyway) to make sure the blithering idiot didn't get in. I'll be voting.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

I don't live in London, and I don't vote on principle, but ...

... if I did I couldn't bring myself to vote for Ken. He has turned London in to the most surveilled city in the world: Oyster, CCTV, ANPR - and that's the stuff we know about. He's not ignorant or merely cavalier about the privacy implications of that stuff, he thinks they're actually benefits. He's keen on ID cards. IMO, his attitude to terrorism has made London a far less safe place. Thanks to Ken, Ian Blair is still Commissioner of the Met. NO2ID hosted a hustings on Tuesday last week - all the major candidates turned up, except Ken.

There's other stuff not to like as well - e.g. his habit of picking personal fights and pursuing them with public money, and his tendency to gaffes. But in fairness that's hardly stuff where Boris excels.

If I had a gun put to my head and I was forced to choose, I'd much rather have a bumbling upper-class twit than an old-school Stalinist efficiently going about extending the power of the state over the individual.

Let's just imagine that at some point in the next term of office, the Mayor is approached by the Met and/or the "security" forces and asked to agree to the clandestine wholesale abandonment of what few barriers are in place to misuse of the personal data controlled by the Mayor's office on some burning-Reichstag pretence. I think there's more than an outside chance that Boris would - in a blustering and blundering way - try to say no. Ken would think it a good idea and approve it. If he hasn't already.

In any election, there are essentially two slogans: "more of the same", and "time for a change". I really don't want more of the same, thank you.

If you think that Johnson can't win, I invite you to put your money where your mouth is: Betfair are offering roughly 2:1 odds against a Livingstone victory.

Fair enough, but I always maintain that betting on things you want to happen is silly. (Unless you have specialist knowledge that the betting market - and the betting market-makers - don't.) If you don't want Boris to win, bet that he will win - at least that way you'll have some cash to drown your sorrows if he does. If he doesn't, you'll be glad that you've lost a bit of money.

And if you want to bet, far better to do it with friends so it's a zero-sum-game, than to bring in a third party intermediary who'll ensure they get their cut regardless of outcome.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

It would be easier to support Ken if he wasn't an autocratic, authoritarian arsehole.

[jhg.livejournal.com]

I have my Polling Card safe and sound!

[bootpunk.livejournal.com]

Myself and Fran made sure that our votes would be cast as proxy, as we are out of the country. I'm getting less impressed by Ken by the month, but I still don't want to see Boris win. Anything but. The only consolation would be that a hapless stint as Major could damage the Tories chances at the next GE.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

I would think Boris can't win but US politics taught me never to say "what an idiot, he'll never win"...