News from the New Party

London's dilemma

The Mayoral election is meant to make politics exciting, not insufferable. But how is any intelligent Londoner meant to cast their vote?

Give it to Ken Livingstone? A man who has had unaccountable power for far too long, who presides over a bureaucracy against which there are far too many accusations of corruption and who broke the worthwhile Left-wing taboo against doing deals with the far Right when he embraced the Muslim Brotherhood?

Boris Johnson, then? For someone from my background there's the small problem that he's a Tory. I accept that many readers won't see that as a problem, so I'll move to a larger difficulty: he's a useless Tory.

I don't know Boris Johnson, but I suspect his bumbling exterior is partly for show. Nonetheless, a carefully cultivated impression need not be a deceptive one, and the evidence is strong that Johnson is politically clueless. A clueless holder of executive office and a large budget is a risk to the quality of public life. Stephen Norris was a capable Conservative candidate in the previous Mayoral elections (and ironically gave up his ambitions to stand again so that the party could present a more diverse image to the electorate). His successor is clearly not worthy of support even against a Mayor who is manifestly unfit for public office.

I know from much anecdotal evidence that Oona was a dedicated constituency MP. One of the misfortunes of her former constituents in Bethnal Green and Bow is that, having replaced her with the absurd George Galloway, they are now in effect unrepresented at Westminster. Oona showed a good deal of dignity in defending her constituency against some ugly racist forces. I've no doubt she would be effective in dampening rather than inflaming communal tensions, which is the least one can require of the Mayor. London would benefit from an efficient, articulate and attractive figurehead in succession to a man who lacks the most rudimentary sense of public service.