I should explain that the voting in this poll took place in June. I thought I had posted the results then, but it appears not. So that's the reason why Messers Borwick and Lightfoot are not included. I did not include Seb Coe and Margot James as options as they had both ruled themselves out.
Steve Norris 28%
Michael Portillo 22%
Nick Ferrari 9%
Vanessa Feltz 8%
Syed Kamall 7%
Zak Goldsmith 6%
Eric Ollerenshaw 5%
Nicholas Boles 3%
Angie Bray 3%
Andrew Boff 2%
Brian Coleman 2%
Ray Lewis 2%
Roger Evans 1%
Rchard Barnes 1%
Simon Milton 1%
894 people voted
25 comments:
Excellent! - A scouser comes top again!
Portillo 22%.
Thats laughable.
Bring back seb Coe.
I actually like Steve Norris's style a lot, and would have been happy to see him stand again. But would the party not look ridiculous if it throws the contest open to Londoners in a primary, and ends up with the same candidate as the last two times?
And no sign of the only two declared candidates...
Shagger Norris is a has been, a serial philanderer who's an embarrassment to the party - either this poll has been skewed by Norris fans or the party really doesn't have a clue in London...
Or perhaps it's been skewed by opponents voting for the least desirable candidate! After all, if we had a poll for LibDem candidate I'd vote for the awful, screechy, 'let me patronise you if you know what that means' Susan Kramer :-)
What can possibly be the point in having Norris as the conservative mayoral candidate again? He has tried twice and failed twice, running against the same man. The message is clear: when Londoners are presented with a choice between Livingston and Norris, they opt for the former. It must surely be time to try somebody else, someone with less negative baggage.
Oh dear, not Shagger again. I'm not up to speed on this, but were Simon Jenkins and Sir John Stevens absolutely ruled out?
Oh dear, Sir Simon bottom of the poll. What a tragedy.
"I actually like Steve Norris's style a lot, and would have been happy to see him stand again. But would the party not look ridiculous if it throws the contest open to Londoners in a primary, and ends up with the same candidate as the last two times?"
Unfortunately, anonymous, the party looking ridiculous when it chooses its Mayoral candidate appears to be something of a permanent fixture on the political landscape.
The point is to get the best candidate. I believe that person is Steve Norris. He has serious credentials and gravitas. He knows the issues inside out and is seen by Londoners as a potential Mayor. He can hold his own in the London media. He also has the independence of mind that voters genuinely value in this race.
We shouldn’t get bogged down with specific policies, it’s important that the conservative candidate, first and foremost, represents the change in the party. The electorate will wonder about the extent of the apparent rejuvenation of the conservative party if it can’t muster anybody other than Norris to challenge Livingstone. Although there is nothing wrong with Norris per se (I’ve voted for him twice), not only does he have a track record of failure in mayoral elections against Livingstone, but he’s also associated with the conservative’s recent, shambolic past. And whilst some prominent Conservative politicians have gone out of their way to embrace the Cameron agenda, Norris doesn’t seem to be a leading proponent of compassionate conservatism. His failure to embrace this new conservatism is all the more relevant when you consider a great deal of the swing voters who abandoned the conservatives for New Labour in 1997, and aren’t themselves diehard Tories, live in urban areas.
The hour is at hand - Draft Heffer.
The next mayoral contest should not be run along party lines. There should simply be an "anyone but Ken" candidate who would appeal to all those who want that ghastly man out of City Hall. Given that Livingstone is returned largely on the back of votes from ethnic minorities and students, one would have thought that it shouldn't be too difficult to find a centrist candidate with broad appeal.
So for the good of London, the Conservatives and the Lib-Dems should refrain from choosing their own nominees and should let an independent come forward who stands a chance of uniting opinion and who would not split the (extensive) anti-Ken vote.
Otherwise, this dreadful man will be in office for perpetuity, running London as a showcase for his own outdated, socialist prejudices (which is how he behaves and is clearly what he expects).
I hardly think the late Eric Heffer would do; he was born in Hertford and made his home in Liverpool.
Hector:
You're wrong. Steve was a moderniser when, while he was embracing London's ethnic and gay communities, the party was banging on about Section 28 and asylum seekers. He went out with TV cameras and reporters and met homeless people when the party leadership was droning on about country farmers with shotguns.
He is exactly the sort of modern, inclusive candidate our party needs and, unlike so many of those who are being discussed, actually has the credibility in the eyes of the voters to be the Mayor.
wmbyrd
How can you say Norris has no backbone? He stood up to his party when he thought they were wrong. He is always spoken his mind when what he believes was unfashionable in the Tory party and when it is now finally
fashionable. Portillo may have changed his mind on the issues. Norris has not.
Dave Harris
Julia,
I partially concede; he has been a modernizer at times. However, will the majority of the electorate remember him reaching out to the gay community when they’re confronted by this rich, over-fed, philandering man? Traits which, despite Prescott’s best efforts, are still associated with the twilight of the last, now widely mocked, conservative administration. What’s needed is a change. Norris is a good man, a modernizer before his times, and would be a passionate mayor, but he’ll never be elected because his ideas and pledges will not scrutinized. The media will again focus on the ‘shagger’ image, and the voters will see the epitome of an old-school Tory.
I disagree. Steve Norris is the only person to have ever injected seriousness into this election.
He is a highly intelligent and articulate person who has had some very well thought out ideas to tackle problems of crime and transport.
Livingstone is an old-style socialist known to drink a little too much from time to time who met his younger wife in an expensive London restaurant. Floating voters do not hold any of this against him.
If Tories can't get Londoners to take this election and position seriously, they will never take it away from Livingstone. Tittle tattle needs to be defeated with credible policies effectively communicated by a credible would-be Mayor.
That's Steve Norris, not some of the nobodies who have--to London's total boredom--announced that they've decided to lose their party's nomination when the votes are counted before Christmas.
Bring on Mr Nobber. What fun.
Dazza,
You're starting to show your bias now, are you really afraid that this man whose vote went up in 2004 (unlike Livingstone and the GLA tories whose vote went down) has no credibility, or are you more worried that he might end up the candidate over your favoured choice? Having Norris was infinitely better than having Archer or Nikki Page... and would be infinitely better than joke candidates like Borwick or Lightfoot.
What London needs is Derek Laud as Mayor.
I think it's interesting that some people here are not declaring for the candidates they are supporting.
By the way, wmbyrd, Steve Norris was responsible for the Jubilee Extension Line, the largest addition to the tube network to date. He has hardly retired from politics and is actively involved in the party right now. Obviously, any new policies we might here from him will only come if he decides to run.
But I don't think Livingstone will be hoping for Norris over the likes of Borwick, Boles and Lightfoot. Their only electoral "successes" have been getting elected as a local councillor, and who lack the media and communication skills necessary to compete in an election the size of over 70 parliamentary constituencies. And none of them has ever managed the big management projects that are the day to day job of London's Mayor.
I still like David Cameron's idea of a primary for every voter in the capital.
Lord Stevens presided over the same rise in crime as Ken Livingstone, with arguably more powers to control it than are at the disposal of the Mayor.
Get real. Wake up. How could he possibly run a campaign against Livingstone given that fact. Not to mention total lack of any electoral experience whatsoever.
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