To think anyone but Sadiq or Zac

[hettyGreek]

Anyone see the debate last night?

They both don't inspire me at all. The lib dem and greens did however look very promising!

Love the greens idea of land for free and people just paying for the building materials.

[lorelei9here]

Marmalade, yes but do you get a vibe from Sadiq that the place is in his heart? I may not have watched enough coverage to get a view.

How is a real Londoner supporting the ruin of London's best view? At a cost of millions, for the benefit of er, Thomas Heatherwick and a few other businesses?

[albertcampionscat]

The outer circle doesn't have many cars on it anyway (have cycled it hundreds of times and always been struck at how lightly used it was).

I like Sadiq. He's not flash, but when did that become a bad thing?

[ForalltheSaints]

I would rather have neither of them. Choose someone else as first preference and vote for another party for the London Assembly. If enough other parties are in the London Assembly then the new Mayor has to get another party's support to pass a budget. The Greens were effective between 2000 and 2008 in this when agreeing a budget with Ken Livingstone (funding for support for victims of rape, getting walking and cycling taken seriously as a form of transport).

[YesThisIsMe]

I'm terribly uninspired by Khan. I missed the debate - did they say anything about air pollution? I think the Mayor and the GLA really need to step up and act strongly because it's something that they have the power to do that can make a huge difference to people's lives.

[SarfEast1cated]

I loved Ken, his speech after the 7/7 bombing was perfection. I will vote Sadiq as I want Cameron to see that he does not get everything his own way.

I don't really care if someone is a true Londoner - as long as they can do the job.

[Capricorn76]

But even if Saqiq isn't exciting not that this matters he IS a true Londoner. What does he have to do to prove he's a Londoner? Eat jellied eels and say 'innit' and 'cor blimey gov'ner' every 5 minutes?

[BYOSnowman]

The outer circle always has cars on it - weekends it is full of parked cars for all the sport that goes on. And it is a great cut through

The inner circle is always dead though.

[lorelei9here]

Sarf "I don't really care if someone is a true Londoner - as long as they can do the job."

Not sure what you mean by "true Londoner" - for me I mean they have to feel a real affinity with the place and not just see it as a political springboard like Boris did. I don't insist they were born and raised within hearing of the Bow bells or anything. To that end I feel like Diane Abbott would have been passionate about the place but I think she's become a bit strange in some ways which is a shame.

A pp mentioned pollution, I have asthma but tbh I am not sure what can be done. I think we need to reduce the number of people and businesses setting up here, but I don't think anyone will ever do that. I also don't think a war on cars is helping anyone as long as population spirals out of control but even the Greens don't want to tackle that one.

The inner circle is never dead in my experience, how funny.

[LurkingHusband]

Not sure what you mean by "true Londoner"

It's a little like the judges description of pornography ... "I don't know what the definition is, but I know it when I see it.". Ken has it. Boris has it. Neither Sadiq, nor Zac has it.

In my head, a mayor needs to champion their city to the extent you can almost imagine them getting into a fist fight if they heard someone "disrespect" it. Somehow that image isn't happening for me with any candidates.

Of course a bigger question, is whether the role of Mayor is necessarily amenable to party political splits ?

[lorelei9here]

Lurking, extremely well put. I think an independent London mayor would be great. However, I am quite active in local campaigning and there's a woman here who would receive major backing to stand as an independent councillor but she felt doing that kind of thing without the support of a party was not feasible. I suspect many potential independent mayoral candidates would feel the same.

(as an aside, your username is quite terrifying!)

[lorelei9here]

PS I don't think Boris has it though.

[forkhandles4candles]

MOR is middle of the road. I.e. boring and middling

[lorelei9here]

thanks forkhandles. I don't mind MOR at all if it saves us from stupid outlandish ideas designed to attract yet more tourists and ignore the needs of the people who keep the city going.

[LurkingHusband]

I don't think Boris has it though.

His book about great Londoners fizzes with a warm feeling towards the city, and it's that emotion I get when I see/hear him talk about London.

(Not sure why my username should be terrifying. Although it is out-of-date )

Personally I've grown weary of the Punch and Judy of party politics. It just leads to ludicrous situations where our local MP turns up to "save our post office" whilst trying to and failing forget they voted in favour of the bill which was closing it. Something they really got stroppy about when someone I reminded them.

I was quite excited when the Tories (of all people) ran an experimental "primary" system, where local people had a chance to filter the candidates from a party into a single one they felt comfortable with. However in general, the English have shown time and time again that the only thing they hate more than complaining is changing.

As I said upthread, the whole debate is marginally academic for me (although my DM and DB will vote). However, a pisspoor London Mayor might help energise the country outside the south east. A fact chance if my experience of the West Midlands is a anything to go by.

[Chilver]

I went to a hustings and by far Caroline Pidgeon was the most impressive and plausible followed by Sian Berry. SK and ZG didn't come, sending proxy's instead.

For those against the cycle superhighways, cycling as a mode of transport is a growing and equal option to cars/ public transport. I appreciate your frustrations with your journeys' being disrupted during building works, but have you thought about the fact that for every person cycling to work, there is one less person on your bus/ train/ in a car? And with the biggest challenge to commuting Londoners being the rise in population, sharing the load across multiple modes of transport is the only way to address the matter.

[LurkingHusband]

For those against the cycle superhighways, cycling as a mode of transport is a growing and equal option to cars/ public transport

Is there space for wheelchairs ?

[BYOSnowman]

Sharing the load is fine but not if you are taking 50% of the road capacity for cars and public transport away which they are in my area

I'm all for reducing car numbers but I don't see why bus users have to suffer

[Sistersweet]

So long as I don't have to see George Galloway's revolting face anywhere I don't really care who wins but I'm voting SK

[lorelei9here]

Chilver, it's not the building work that I'm objecting to, I'm afraid it's actually the whole principle of cycle lanes taking so much space away from other road users. I realise a lot of people are cycling but I doubt the final number will be that high that it will be worth it. The knock on effect for elderly and disabled or even just those of us who have to take cabs when carrying heavy stuff for work (applies to many businesses) is already huge.

[BYOSnowman]

Agree lorelei

There is a junction near here that goes onto a big road - it has a lane for turning left and a lane for turning right. There is often a queue at the left turn.

Now they are making a cycle lane so there will only be one long queue and no efficiency of a separate lane for the right turns.

And for how many cyclists? 2or 3 an hour max.