Next month sees a flurry of electoral activity for London residents. The rest of you will have to entertain yourselves with the European Parliament elections, but down here, we also have to vote for members of the London Assembly and the London Mayor.
Having voted Labour since turning eighteen, I did the same in 1997, despite living in a tightly marginal Tory/LibDem constituency. I spent a slightly uncomfortable election night, terrified that my (frankly wasted) ballot paper would allow the dreaded Lady Olga Maitland to win by a single vote… luckily that wasn’t the case. By 2001, though, I was happy enough to vote tactically for the LibDems, and with my increasing disillusionment at a certain sector of the Labour Party, I’ll almost certainly do the same in the next general election.
With the London elections, though, the nature of the system means that candidates tend to campaign on a much narrower range of policies, allowing the voter to choose on an almost single-issue basis. My feeling is that there’s less of a need for strict party loyalty as there is (for many) in a general election. It’s like the mass Green vote in the 1987 Euro elections or the “government in seat loss shock” in just about every round of council elections… you can try something new, without worrying about the country being plagued by riots, military rule or falling house prices (delete according to political leaning).
Nonetheless, my best options in the London Mayor election turn out to be Simon Hughes or Ken Livingstone. I find Ken’s plan to extend the Congestion Charge area quite tempting; as far as I’m concerned, the scheme has done wonders for the general atmosphere in central London. However, I wonder whether we should leave things be for another year or so… extending the zone so soon could easily tip a lot of “floating voters” into the anti-charge camp.
Another of Ken’s ideas is to increase the number of buses on London streets. I’m always in favour of enhancements to the public transport system, but is there much point to this? Even in newly decongested central London, bus travel is unbearably slow; further out (even here in Zone 5) it’s thoroughly miserable at most times of day. If buses are to become a serious mode of transport once again, we’re going to need more (and longer) dedicated bus lanes, and that just isn’t practical with most two-lane city streets. Buses are fine for sprawling suburban residential developments, but hopeless in congested urban areas. The smart money needs to be spent on suburban train services, raising awareness of the less-used stations and, where necessary, tweaking the routes to provide alternatives to popular bus routes.
Of course, another solution would be massive investment in a series of craftily situated light rail networks, expanding and improving upon Croydon’s Tramlink, but I’m not holding my breath…
As for the other candidates, the only TV electoral broadcast I’ve seen has been the one by UK Independence Party. Most of the UKIP candidates in previous elections have been slickly upper-middle-class, conveniently distinguishing themselves from the BNP by the presence of pinstripes and the absence of criminal records, so it’s surprising to see the current crop. The wretched Kilroy is a Euro candidate, while boxing coach Frank Maloney is standing for Mayor. Among his confused and facile “man on the street” list of policies, Frank intends to abolish the Congestion Charge in order to “free car drivers on London’s roads”. Let me guess, Frank… you use a lot of taxis, right? Ever thought of getting out and walking? There’s enough in there to please the radical wing of the Daily Mail readers, but somehow I think it’s going to be the traditional three-horse race.