Next year's race for London mayor got its final major candidate today, with Simon Hughes winning the Liberal Democrat nomination. Looks like it'll be a three-horse raise between Livingstone, Hughes and Norris which may well go right down to the wire. Nicky Gavron is the Labour candidate, but as her whole campaign seems to centre around implicit support for Livingstone amongst the majoirty of Labour supporters, she seems to have been chosen (over Tony Banks, no less) as the Labour membership's way of saying 'we want Ken, but you won't let him back'.
The Guardian references a poll that shows Livingstone at 33%, Norris at 27% and Hughes at 24% of the vote which indicates it could be a long fight between the three. However (and yes, as a Lib Dem, I know I'm biased) I think that Hughes could win - he obviously thinks he can, otherwise he wouldn't have effectively turned down the Deputy Leadership of the party to stand for Mayor. With Livingstone and Norris spending much of the year attacking and dragging each other down Hughes has the chance to be seen as being 'above all that'. But, because of the vagaries of the electoral system used for Mayoral elections, he only has to get into the top two within reasonable distance of the leader, be it Livingstone or Norris, to win. Why? Because of the second preference votes - in a run-off against Norris, he'll get the Livingstone votes (and whatever share of the Green vote that doesn't got to Livingstone) while Norris will only pick up the preferences from various fringe parties (UKIP etc). In a run-off against Livingstone, Hughes will get almost all the Tory vote, which should be enough to take him past Livingstone, who's only likely to get the (relatively small) Labour vote. So, that's how he wins.
Disclaimer: My political predictions are either stunningly accurate or stunningly false, so please don't take this as gospel. Unless it works out exactly as I've said then hail me as a genius.
One thing I discovered while researching this - do a Google search for Steve Norris, and the first thing you see listed is 'Not Currently Active', which Google seems to think is the title of his website.
The Guardian references a poll that shows Livingstone at 33%, Norris at 27% and Hughes at 24% of the vote which indicates it could be a long fight between the three. However (and yes, as a Lib Dem, I know I'm biased) I think that Hughes could win - he obviously thinks he can, otherwise he wouldn't have effectively turned down the Deputy Leadership of the party to stand for Mayor. With Livingstone and Norris spending much of the year attacking and dragging each other down Hughes has the chance to be seen as being 'above all that'. But, because of the vagaries of the electoral system used for Mayoral elections, he only has to get into the top two within reasonable distance of the leader, be it Livingstone or Norris, to win. Why? Because of the second preference votes - in a run-off against Norris, he'll get the Livingstone votes (and whatever share of the Green vote that doesn't got to Livingstone) while Norris will only pick up the preferences from various fringe parties (UKIP etc). In a run-off against Livingstone, Hughes will get almost all the Tory vote, which should be enough to take him past Livingstone, who's only likely to get the (relatively small) Labour vote. So, that's how he wins.
Disclaimer: My political predictions are either stunningly accurate or stunningly false, so please don't take this as gospel. Unless it works out exactly as I've said then hail me as a genius.
One thing I discovered while researching this - do a Google search for Steve Norris, and the first thing you see listed is 'Not Currently Active', which Google seems to think is the title of his website.
Nick got away with this at 6:58 PM
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