Just a reminder for anyone who still thinks Boris is a lovable buffoon....

[beansprout]

When Blair visited Congo in 2002: "No doubt," he said, "the AK47s will fall silent and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird."

On Liverpool:
"A society that has become hooked on grief and likes to wallow in a sense of
vicarious victimhood."
· A Spectator editorial, 2004 (Johnson didn't write the editorial, but he approved it)

"Gay marriage can only ever be a ludicrous parody of the real thing."
· Daily Telegraph, 2005

"If gay marriage was OK - and I was uncertain on the issue - then I saw no reason in principle why a union should not be consecrated between three men, as well as two men; or indeed three men and a dog."
· From his book, Friends, Voters, Countrymen, 2001

well no was saying that "you are only behaving this way because you are paid to" is no sort of defence

Whereas Johnson finds it perfectly natural to refer to black people as "piccaninnies" and talk about "watermelon smiles"

Yes he apologies but what sort of person USES those kinds of words!!?!?! It says a lot about his education and background

HE was saying...

"........but actually you are just like a concentration camp guard, you are just doing it because you are paid to, aren't you?" is a pretty odd thing to say to anyone anyway, I think.

And Ken is happy to play host to very suspect visitors i.e. terrorists.

But Boris would be more than awful for London.

So, as always with politicians, it's a matter of choosing which is the lesser berk.

I'm voting Ken. Don't trust the copper to organise a piss up in a brewery. Boris is a complete joke and a nasty little Tory to boot. All the others haven't got a hope in hell.

if bozza becomes mayor I really think he will be very bad for London's image
he's an embarassment
I don't want people to associate London with Boris!

Winky, when did Ken play host to terrorists?

I don't think its fair that we are having to choose between these two idiots. I just CANNOT work out who is going to get my vote today, and if I'm not careful, I'll end up not voting, as it seems the fairest thing....

better to vote for a minority candidate (if you agree with any of them) than not to vote at all imo.

Off out now so won't see winky's answer if there is one - just so she knows I'm not ignoring her!

GO KEN

I'm voting Ken because although I don't particularly like him I do respect the improvements he's made in public transport.

Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, at his weekly press conference 21 March 2006 made a classic racist jibe - telling two Londoners (the Reuben brothers), who have lived in London since the 1950s when they immigrated as teenagers, "if they're not happy, perhaps they could always go back to Iran and see if they do better under the Ayatollahs."

Incidentally, they are Jewish but not of Iranian origin. The context was a disagreement over a property development in the east of London.

what a great guy!

That's the kind of thing the Evening Standards puts as it's own headlines every blardy day!

Look is he racist, or is he sucking up to terrorists? You can't have both

And they were two billionaire property developers who were sabotaging the developments in Stratford, and he didn't know they were Jewish. And the official enquiry concluded that "Ken Livingstone's suggestion that two Jewish multi-millionaire property developers might "go back to Iran and try their luck with the ayatollahs" was proportionate and voiced with "good reason.""

Ken Livinstone has always struck me as being anti semitic.

Livingstone

How can you tell? Is it like being a paedophile, where you always have a squint or a false eye?

Policywonk, here you are:

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2005/feb/20/london.politicalcolumnists

no its like when people say anti semitic things and then claim its ok because they didnt know the person was jewish.

Well if we are playing Guardian Articles, what about this one:

"Britain is now heading into its own Bush crisis. Next week 7 million Londoners may wake to discover Boris Johnson is their mayor. Some time before the summer of 2010 60 million UK citizens may discover that David Cameron is their prime minister. If you live in London as I do that means living under a double yoke of old Etonians.

What do I have against old Etonians? Nothing much, some of my best friends, and so forth. But Johnson and Cameron share more than a public school. Like the shadow chancellor, George Osborne (an old St Paulian), they belonged as students at Oxford to the Bullingdon, described as a "dining club".

The group portraits of the Bullingdon Club showing Johnson, Cameron and Osborne are now an embarrassment to the politicians in them. There they stand in their made-to-measure blue tailcoats (£1,200 each), ready to take on the world by frightening a few waitresses and wrecking a restaurant.

You might argue that their haughty pose represents nothing more than youthful excess and a wish to be in touch with the world of Evelyn Waugh, but you must also wonder why the leadership of the likely next British government has been drawn from such a narrow and privileged seam of English society.

The front bench and Cameron's private office are stacked with old Eton boys. Journalists write about it continually, but with remarkably little sense of shock, as though the grammar school years of Heath, Thatcher and Major had never existed and the old routes to power (a school, a club, a good marriage, a trust fund) were just the inescapable, unalterable facts in the web of English life.

The question then arises: if this is what England is, if this is what England wants, do I belong in it?"

It riles me that people get worked up about the nazi concentration guard comment. It was clearly a reference to people who do whatever they do because "it's their job". Doesn't make any difference that the object of the comment was Jewish. That was victimy nonsense.

I voted for Ken (though didn't really want to cos not happy with the endless race advisers and the slightly stroppy approach to being called to account) but Boris is, underneath is cuddly exterior, a ridiculous Tory with the same old old school interests. Take a look at this pic to remind youself idiots

I went to Oxford and I can assure you that all members of the Bullingdon Club were out and out idiots. Class-ridden, ignorant twats.

Ken is definitely pro-Palestinian, like a lot of 80s lefties were/are. I don't agree with his stance on Israel at all (or what I suspect his stance is ...I have never actually heard him talking about Israel). But I don't think he's anti-semitic and I find it rich that the nasty, right wing rag that is the Evening Standard made such a hoo-ha about Ken's stupid, ill conceived but ultimately NOT anti-semitic comment to the (detestable) whathisname, Gilligan? A horrid, horrid man. The Standard is such a vile rag and long hounded Ken (the hated him the first time around, in the GLC days). Nothing they say has any credibility with me.

I grew up living one street away from Ken. He was a social, down to earth man with time for anyone. Boris lives in a bubble of braying, Spectator-reading twats from Chelsea. I know who I trust to have Londoners best interests at heart.

oops - not MNers are idiots

Boris and Cameron are idiots.

Mrs Mattie, you speak the truth. Loving your work these days

I worked at Westmister during the Thatcher/Major years and met most of the politicians and without exception the Tories were arrogant shits. The Labour ones had a sense of humour SOMETIMES and the liberals were all very polite.
Boris is a blonde Michael Portillo IMO and I think my cat would be a better mayor than him.

Why, thank you!@ margoandjerry

Miggsie, I agree with you. I worked in govt in the Major/Blair years too and there is a qualitative difference. Labour have their faults but ultimately they give a shit. Liberals likewise. Tories literally cared about their own.

As I've said before, when Ken Clark was Chancellor we had regular meetings with the Vintage Car Owners Association. When Gordon became Chancellor we suddenly started having meetings with the Child Poverty Action Group who would certainly never have got access before.