Lastest (and Last) News On The London Mayoral Candidates Before Tomorrow’s Elections

Matt O’Connor Gives Support to Alan Craig and the Christian Choice

Former London Mayoral candidate for the English Democrats, Matt O’Connor, is calling on Londoners not to vote for him in the elections tomorrow, but to give their votes to Alan Craig and the Christian Choice instead.

It was rumoured that Matt O’Connor was planning on standing in as an independent, which was dispelled when Matt said, “I want to reaffirm that I have resigned from both the party and the election race. After discussing the matter with my family and children, we decided we would all be voting with our consciences and that meant voting for Alan Craig and The Christian Choice.”

“They will have our 1st votes for London Mayor and our Assembly List votes as well. They are the only party serious about standing up for families and our captial’s children.”

Matt joins other former London Mayoral candidates backing Alan Craig’s bid for the Assembly. Earlier, Winston MacKenzie (Independent Candidate), Brian Haw (the bloke who lives outside Parliament protesting against the war) and Frank Maloney (UKIP mayoral candidate back in 2004) signalled he has their support while the Evening Standard reports Brian Paddick (Lib Dem Candidate) is considering giving Alan Craig one of his mayoral votes.

The Christian Choice list seeks votes from 85,000 people to win a seat in the Assembly or 5%. 7% would get them 2 seats.

Election Will Be Determined On Second Votes

The opinion polls are at deadlock between mayor Ken and Boris the clown. If one does not get a clear majority the second priority votes would be used. As the election looms I urge people to even consider voting Boris for mayor and voting Ken even if it’s just your second choice. This would stop Boris getting in for good.

Boris on countless times has announced that he does not know the costs of his own proposals yet he looks to get rid of bendy buses replacing them with new routemasters which would be wider and bigger (more useless spending) and would pose threats of crushing cyclists. He supports Bush in NOT signing the Kyoto agreement and has claimed that Bush would experience his full support.

He is also racist and has claimed, “Blacks have lower IQs” while calling offending the citizens of Portsmouth and Liverpool. He fumbles, had no idea on certain topics and would give London a bad image.

So please, Don’t Vote Boris!

Sun Is In The Sky, Oh Why, Oh Why, Would I Want To Be Anywhere Else (London Mayoral Elections)

This post has nothing to do with the song LDN by Lily Allen. Although I did find a cool acapella version on YouTube.

With 4 days to go til the Mayoral Election in London, I have decided to voice my opinions on the cadidates and other information about them.

Ken Livingstone (Labour) – kenlivingstone.com

Ken has turned out to be like Marmite (everyone seen the commercials?) in the fact that, from what I’ve seen, people either love him or hate him. There seems to be no in between. People have taken a huge disliking to him over the congestion charge in London which is ever expanding in both area and cost. While I do not agree with the scheme there are many things that Ken has done that can make up for the congestion. Of course I am talking about Oyster Cards. The best thing to hit London Transport. They make travel easier, cheaper and my favourite faster. Ken’s policies on policing have had a huge affect on crime rates in London seeing a fall of 6.5% overall [2]. Gun crime in general was down by 1.4% and is the lowest since 2000 although the 5% reduction target was missed. Homicide was down (4.8%), as is rape (16.7%) and knife crime (15%). The 160 murders were the fewest in nine years. And the 37,000 robberies reported, which represents a fall of 19.2%, is the lowest since 2000, according to the Met [2]. However, allowing priority to asylum seekers in things like housing have unfortunately pushed people toward BNP policies and to vote BNP themselves.

My Opinion:

Winning the Olympic bid has proved that London is becoming more and more successful in the areas of crime and transport. London has experienced and maintained a fall of 50 per cent in racist attacks due to good relations within communities. However, development of London is hindered by the awful congestion charge which has hit and taken it’s toll on small businesses and minimum wage earners (Like myself). The cost of living has hit an all time high pushing residents to the already crowded outskirts which allowing the rich to fill their places.

Boris Johnston (Conservative or Tory) – www.backboris.com

Boris Johnston is the major rival of Ken and looks to gain the advantage from former Ken supporters put off by the congestion charge. His policies are somewhat extravagant and it has been doubted whether he would be able to keep his promises. He wants to “Beef up the police presence” [1] and “Implement serious strategies on knife and gun crime” [1] although the figures under Ken’s rule show an overall drop in crime and a drop in both knife and gun crime. He wants to “Crack down on the culture of casual disorder” [1] and to “Make transport safer” [1] which are fundementally the same policies. Those four policies show no real consideration or plan until Boris reaches office. He also promises to scrap the Congestion Charge yet the scheme is actually yet to pay for itself. He won’t be able to abolish the Congestion Charge until it at leasts pay for itself or cause a loss in government funds.

My Opinion:

He is the worst candidate that could get in. His policies are a (Carbon) copy (Get it?) of Ken’s with vague ideas of his own added to look slightly fresh. His puppy dog persona are the reason people are willing to vote for him or as my girlfriend said, “I would vote for him as he is funny.” He waffles and blusters in his speeches [3] and was shamed in 2004 for cheating on his wife. He constantly fails to answer how he will pay for his pledges [4]. He enters a debate uneducated and is constantly admitting he doesn’t know what he is talking about [5].
I urge to listen to the Stop Boris campaign song. Click here to listen.
And another video from someone else.

Brian Paddick (Liberal Democrats or Lib Dem) – www.brianpaddick.org

Brian Paddick also looks to cut crime and improve transport as many candidates say they would. Brian realises that Londoners are paying some of the highest transport fares in the world, often for poor services [1]. He looks to bring into effect his costed plan to bring London’s transport system into the 21st century [1]. He is very passionate about protecting London’s precious environment and has been very active against the expansion of Heathrow. “We need more trains and less plane,” says Brian Paddick. “I want to make London into one of the greenest capitals in the world” [1].

My Opinion:

I’ve always been a Lib Dem supporter and Brian really has costed plans to bring into action for London transport, etc. However, he is against the expansion of Heathrow where I am for it. People fail to realise that expanding Heathrow creates more jobs, more revenue and increase tourism and business in London. The Pro’s are much weightier than the Con’s in the Heathrow debate and therfore I back it. It also looks to me that he is heightening the fear of the public to win distastefully win votes through his television campaign.

Now in Alphabetical order of party:

Richard Barnbrook (British Nationalist Party or BNP) – www.londonbnp.org.uk

While many believe the party to be racist, alot has been done to improve the parties image. Policies mainly focus on putting Londoners and British people before foreigners. They have slowly gained support as the amount of foreigners who come to London to use our free education and healthcare is hitting new records. Crime by foreigners is constantly climbing with a rise of 8.8% in gun crime in Afro-Caribbean communities [2]. Policies include: Housing British people first, stopping immigration, building a better NHS, zero tolerance on crime and yobs, British jobs for British workers, scrap the congestion charge, lower Council Taxes and bettering education for all our people [1].

My Opinion:

The party is clearly racist as they plan to stop immigration and to better education for all ‘our’ people’. ‘Our people’ must mean English people. It is sad though as their policies are seen as a way out for many Britains who fail to get jobs, fear crime in proverty stricken areas (where immigrants are more likely to live) and experience higher taxes due to over crowding in hospitals and schooling.

Alan Craig (The Christian Choice) – www.thechristianchoice.org.uk

Policies:

• Promote marriage and stable family as a long-term solution to youth crime, education under-achievement and child proverty.
• Stop the mega-mosque at West Ham near 2012 Plympics proposed by a controversial Islamic sect. (megamosquenothanks.com)
• Champion London’s most vulnerable – the unborn, the elderly, the refugee
• Reduce the yawning gap between the capital’s inner-city proverty and City-bonus wealth
• End the (alleged) corruption at City Hall [1]

My Opinion:

Stands no chance unfortunately. While his policies are certainly refreshing his proposal to ‘champion’ the refugee will put many voters off. He also fails to mention anything about transport and I would like to know how he would feel about the Heathrow expansion.

Matt O’Connor (The English Democrats) – www.englishdemocrats.org.uk or www.voteenglish.org

From what I can gather, Matt O’Connor has resigned from the mayoral election claiming “the party did not have sufficient financial clout to run a credible campaign [6].” The party say “…he [Matt O'Connor] was made fully aware of the problems confronting a candidate for a smaller political party which is challenging the Establishment Parties – not least the problem of raising sufficient funds to fight an election campaign especially given the lack of coverage of non Establishment candidates [7].”

This is a huge shame as I was planning to vote for him.

Sian Berry (The Green Party) – www.sianformayor.org.uk

Policies:

• Free insulation for every home that needs it.
• Cut all bus and off-peak tube fares by 20p.
• Insist all employers pay a London Living Wage of at least £7.20 per hour.
• Change planning rule to ensure at least 60% of all new housing is affordable.
• Affordable premises for small shops and businesses in new commercial developments.
• Oppose all airport expansion in London and the South East.
• Rail and tube franchises back under public control.
• Cancel the £500 million Thames Gateway roadbuilding plans – put the money into public transport instead.
• Solar electricity and heating on 100,000 roofs in the city by 2015.
• A 20mph city-wide speed limit on all residential roads roads throughout London.
• Community policing through Safer Neighbourhood Teams round the clock not just at certain times of the day. [1]

My Opinion:

While their policies remain interesting and well prepared, some are completely off the rails and make sure they do not get into power. I can’t understand the idea of slowing traffic down to 20mph and I do believe that the police already have a similar scheme in effect. However their other policies are certainly something I would look for and hope that another party not too affliated with the Greens would suggest more suitable suggestions than the radical changes proposed here.

Lindsey German (The Left List) – www.lindsey4london.org

They have “10 Steps To A Better London”:

1. Housing – An emergency council house building programme.
2. Transport – Decent public transport to encourage less car use. Cut fares and increase provision with new tube and rail lines.
3. War – Bring the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan, no attacks on civil liberties. Spend the money used for war on welfare.
4. Education – Good local schools for every child in every borough. No academics, no tuition fees for students.
5. Health – No to health rationing, stop hospital closures, no privatisation of doctors’ surgeries.
6. Proverty – Tax the wealthly to close the gap between rich and poor. Pensions to be linked with earnings.
7. Environment – Stop big business putting profits before the planet. No to the third runway at Heathrow.
8. Olympics – Londoners should not have to subsidise the games. No cuts in arts or local sport provision to pay for the Olympics.
9. Work – The London living wage of £7.20 an hour must be enforced everywhere, alongside full trade union rights and a 35 hour working week.
10. Equality - Oppose all forms of discrimination and racism.

My Opinion:

Again some good policies, but I don’t think no.1 is neccessary. Lindsey German talks about how she was against the war in Iraq from the start, but I see the war as a good thing as it rid the nation of a terrible dictator and oppressor. I also think that you cannot suddenly bring the troops out of Iraq without causing some disruption, whether it be in Iraq or on the world stage. My priority as it is with many of these candidates is their decision to side against the Heathrow expansion.

Gerard Batten (UK Independence Party or UKIP) – www.batten4londonmayor.com

He like others is vowing to improve policing and transport in London. He says that Police should have only one target – to reduce crime and that he would reduce tube fares and make tickets flexible on transport. He also looks to cap the cost of the Olympic Games and stop funding for cronies and quangos. The main policies of course are: No to mass immigration, No to the Lisbon Treaty/European Constitution and No to the European Union [1].

My Opinion:

His idea of capping the cost of the Olympic would ensure that money is not taken from other activities in London, which it looks certain to do. The party aims to stop mass immigration which is something I do support as London becomes overcrowded with a NHS unable to support the city. The European Union has seen millions of pounds go to help develop poorer nations while London remainsm with poor transport facilities, rising ethnic crime and is about to host the Olympic Games.

Well, I hope this helps some people make up their minds in the coming elections. I’ll be sure to update on the situation.

References:
[1] – “The Candidates” leaflet
[2] – BBC “Offences fall by 6.5% in London” article
[3] – YouTube – “Schwarznegger on Boris Johnson” video
[4] – YouTube – “Boris Johnson with Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight debate” video
[5] – YouTube – “Boris Johnson falsely attacks Brian Paddick” video
[6] - Voteenglish.org Press Release – 25th April 2008 “English Mayoral Candidate Steps Down – New Campaign to Launch” article
[7] – Englishdemocrats.org.uk “Matt O’Connor’s shock resignation press release” article