So, it looks like Boris is going to win.....

[JeremyVile]

Boris Johnson.
How the feck did that happen??

Hoping the BBC are just joshing with us...

[JeremyVile]

Well, I vote Labour but I don't like Humous.
It's a conundrum...

[EffiePerine]

I will be gnawing my fingernails smiling politely

Actually the local tories i have met so far are pretty nice, just a bit ineffectual (Labour heartland, not a chance in hell of local council changing). As opposed to the ones I grew up with (safe tory seat) who were vile

[pooka]

Biggit - you're not posh enough to have a pint with Boris unless you wear this:

www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/mar2007/bullingdon_01.jpg

See you later.

PS I shall not be talking about the mayor unless Ken has won. If Boris has won I will be drinking copious amounts of wine, crying and generally snapping at all and sundry. So no change there.

[EffiePerine]

That's my problem. I do think we need a chance, but I grew up in the 80s and remember the working classes being completely shafted ... I know the Tories are supposed to have changed but I can see the smae old buggers there in the background and I want to run sharp things into them

so I end up in wussy Liberal territory with comfortable shoes and increasing neuroses

[Izzywhizzy]

'As much as I DON'T want Boris to win', I meant

[EffiePerine]

change

[marina]

I live in a politically very nondescript suburb in outer London and I have never seen so many people at our polling station.
Was at choir practice next door last night and all 20 of the choir had voted = 100% turnout
We are adjacent to Derek Conway's constituency, and in a formerly Tory constituency that turned in 1997, has a smashing Labour MP, but is definitely a marginal.
Boris may be more personable than Ken - but I still do not like his underlying political ideology and I think too much emphasis on personality politics may have given London a potential albatross Mayor if the predictions are right

[Piffle]

so glad I'm not a Londoner. I'm not eloquent enough to defend all the faux pas Boris will make. Slightly xenophobic and classist. Great qualifications indeed.

[EffiePerine]

yes, but Ken has his fair share of faux pas...

I'm undecided about the personality thing. Because, for Mayor, you are voting for the person rather than the party, which is after all Ken's legacy.

[foxinsocks]

am watching coverage now (while working ahem).

1 in 10 has been counted they say. Boris in the lead atm (long way to go).

Worst news - BNP doing OK . BASTARDS.

[EffiePerine]

Oh lord

[motherinferior]

[marina]

Effie, agree 100% with your 11.47 post there. Behind jovial Boris there is still a grand tradition of disregard for the lesser orders. All the bonhomie in the world does not alter the fact that he is in the same political party as have been Norman Tebbit, Keith Joseph and Enoch Powell.

[Izzywhizzy]

What channel are you watching, foxy?

[motherinferior]

As the man put it, Lower Than Vermin.

[EffiePerine]

Yes, I sometimes think I should be charitable and acknowledge that parties change and adapt (wouldn't like to sign up to left-wing policies in the earlier 20th c for eg) but they could at least CHANGE THE PEOPLE. Because we are not stupid, we remember.

[foxinsocks]

lol marina. You are so fabulous you know.

Dh and I were saying this morning...what Cameron has to do and has been trying to do is distance himself from those type of Tories. To make it 'ok' to vote Tory again because it hasn't been ok for middle England to vote Tory for a while. Methinks the tide is turning.

but you know what? council results almost never bear resemblance to the votes people make when it comes to voting for MPs/parliament. People feel more comfortable voting for Tory councils than they do for Tory government.

[VersdeSociete]

And, mi, you saw the man in an " I heart Maggie" badge...
(another new name, fed up with the spongebob riff)

[motherinferior]

I did indeed. More than 25 years later, the image is still seared on my brain.

[pooka]

Well what a wonderful day for London if BNP AND Boris do well.
It makes me ashamed to be a londoner. And sometimes I really hate where I live - should think that it'll be Boris all the way round here.

[EffiePerine]

was reading Matthew Parris' biog a few years backm, and not being partic. aware int he 80s (on the grounds that I was about 10) hadn't clocked that it wasn;t just Margaret Thatcher, there was the whole party machine generating these policies and implemeting them... we can't conveniently say that was Thatcherism and move on because I suspect they're doing the same things, just quietly .

What's your alternative though? God this is depressing me .

[EffiePerine]

because I can't do social collectivism either

(sorry, misc political musings here)

[talilac]

I agree with Marina re Boris.

We too have a very decent local labour MP, but our assembly member is the dreaded Brian Coleman, fingers crossed really that he gets kicked out. The mayoral thing is fascinating and potentially terrifying but there is a lot more at stake here.

Going to be watching later with bated breath..

[seeker]

"I'm going out, I may be some time"

[motherinferior]

Seeker, can I come too?