London Calling

Tom Wilde · 05-05-2008, 04:08 PM

I just want to put down a few random notes on the London elections, from the perspective of a eurosceptical London voter.

Sadly, the Liberal Party weren't standing in London at all this year - London being one of our weakest areas. I hope we can now get organised in the capital and put on a strong challenge in the next London mayoral/assembly elections in 2012, but this time around I had no Liberal candidates to vote for. I still wish UKIP well and watched your campaign with interest. Or tried to.

Leaflets and canvassing
We had leaflets and campaign material through the letterbox from:
Labour (at least 6 leaflets/postcards); Socialist Alternative; Left List; Green Party (one very professional newspaper and two leaflets).

(I think we also got one from the Christian People's Popular Christian Party, or whatever they are called, but can't remember for sure)

We received no leaflets at all from:
UKIP, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, English Democrats, BNP, NF

Canvassing:
The only knock on the door was by someone from the Socialist Alternative, the day before the vote.

Official voting guide
All voters in London received by post a glossy full-colour A5 booklet called "The Candidates". Within it each mayoral candidate had a double page spread to make their appeal to the voters. Assembly candidates were listed at the back, but with no additional detail. This was definitely the most useful and informative thing we received on which to decide how to vote. I'm sure it had a lot of influence on the way people chose to vote. I carried it to the polling booth and I'm sure many others did so too.

The BNP section: much as I detest that party, their double page spread was very effective and professional. Well designed, well thought out, didn't mention their more extreme views at all, would have left the average voter wondering why all the other parties are so anti-BNP. Focussed on knife crime (but without referencing Tony Lecomber), St George's Day and the hardship caused by economic migrants, but all done in the best possible taste. One anti-Muslim reference, but carefully coded. 8/10

The UKIP section: embarrassingly amateurish. Banged on about immigration and the EU, as if being Mayor would give him any power to change that. Made UKIP look more extreme than the BNP (see above). Photo of Gerard Batten was fractionally better than his usual one, as if the photographer had said "Fer gawd's sake, Gerard, SMILE!" but still not great. If Gerard insists on designing his own election materials, he should at least get somebody competent to check them afterwards. 3/10

Green section was good (7/10), Boris' section was better than Ken's. Paddick's section was mediocre. The English Democrats was poor (3/10) but nicely laid out and probably seems great to anyone who is already an English nationalist. (but likely to leave all other voters cold, as it did me).

The National Front and One London didn't have their own sections in the leaflet as they only had Assembly candidates, not Mayoral candidates.

Voting day

I intended to support UKIP but after reading the leaflet above felt unable to support Gerard. Why on earth does he find it necessary to bang on about immigration in an election for Mayor of the country's most multiracial city? His other policies struck me as average, and the overall approach struck me as very amateur. I therefore decided to vote for the Green candidate for mayor, despite my reservations about Green policy nationally.

I did however give both my Assembly election votes to UKIP. I knew nothing about the UKIP Assembly candidates apart from their names, but decided to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Incidentally, it has been mentioned that the NF outpolled UKIP in this constituency (and others). I found that so astonishing that I initially though the BBC had made a mistake, but not so. As the NF are very little known here and ddid no campaigning that I saw, I can't cast much light on that. On the ballot paper, they appeared as "NF - Putting Londoners First", which was clever. It is inane but reassuring. Sure, it is a coded reference to their racist views but it just looked like the kind of positive waffle that many advertisers and politicians use, and wouldn't have scared anyone off. I imagine that their success, as somebody has already suggested, was simply as a proxy for the BNP. Or more exactly, there are about 3-5% of Londoners who are angry, anti-minority, anti-old party and generally want to kick out. They will vote for whichever party on the ballot paper that they think will send the message "I'm Mad As Hell!" most effectively, regardless of whether that is the NF, BNP or Klu Klux Klan!

Anthony Butcher · 05-05-2008, 04:38 PM