Hilary Benn on Ken Livingstone
There is a poll in today’s Guardian that puts Boris Johnson a single percentage point ahead of Ken Livingstone, with other candidates nowhere in sight, for the upcoming mayoral election. Psephology seems to have more to do with reading the tea leaves than science, and this belief of mine is reinforced by the third paragraph in the article:
Today’s poll - the only one to be carried out by a national newspaper using established techniques - suggests Johnson could pull off a sensational victory on May 1 over Livingstone, who was elected by comfortable margins in 2000 and 2004. But the outcome is far from decided.
The poll, then, says that it is very close between Johnson and Livingstone. The detailed work isn’t out yet on the ICM website, but it will be interesting to see how they deal with the two-vote system and what they believe their margin of error to be. Crucially, ICM usually only count people who consider their probability of voting to be greater than .7.
Anyhow, here’s HilaryBenn on the Labour Vision YouTube channel.
“The first door we knocked on today we asked a man who lived there how do you think Ken is doing,” Hilary Benn said.“’We notice more police in the area,’ he said and ‘the travel for kids on public transport is good’. That’s Labour politics working.“This election is about whether we’re going to continue to see that in London or go backwards, which is what Boris Johnson would represent.
“It’s a real choice here, and this is an election that matters. It’s a serious choice for Londoners, this is a great capital city so use your vote.
“Vote for Ken and return Labour in London on 1 May.”
Meanwhile, Boris has a message for homeless Londoners about the value of this house: “shedloads“. That gem was at a hustings organised by Shelter, Crisis and St. Mungo’s, all charities for the homeless and vulnerably housed. You start to see why - as reported in the Guardian - Johnson is being kept on a tight leash and off the booze by his campaign team: he cannot be trusted to keep his mouth shut and, when his mouth his open, he does badly.
xD.
