Second preferences
Sunder Katwala, general secretary of the Fabian Society, has written an open letter to Lib Dem MPs in London asking them to give their second preference. I hope that they do make public statements in support of Ken. The race is close and Ken’s prediction from a while back when people were treating Johnson as a joke - that he could win the mayoralty - is being shown to have been accurate. The Lib Dems could play a decisive role.
The VoteMatch tool allows you to find the candidate closest to your preference based on the issues in the upcoming election but it can also exclude a candidate or candidates. That allows you to either just eliminate your first preference and choose your second or, assuming that it is a two-horse race between Livingstone and Johnson, choose between those two.
It does present something of an existential problem for the LibDems. On the one hand, they do not wish to antagonise Mr Cameron; equally, many on the social democratic wing, which I think is the preponderance of ordinary members, would probably prefer Mr Livingstone to Mr Johnson. Mr Clegg seems to be leaning towards the Conservatives but, for the time being, reform of the election system for Westminster remains in Labour’s gift. The appeal of a senior figure within the Labour movement but from outside Parliament might be attractive in a way that someone who could be seen as part of the nomenklatura might not. It is also, perhaps, going to press the issue of which way the Lib Dems will jump.
xD.
April 15th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
[...] Dave Cole makes a novel suggestion about how Vote Match can be used to help determine peoples’ second preference votes for the Mayor election. [...]