The Real Choice
Julian Glover reports in the Guardian today that the London Mayoral elections are now just a two-horse race. Their Guardian/ICM poll shows Boris nudging it with 51% of the vote (collating both first and second choices) with Ken on 49%. It has Brain back with the rest of the pack with just 10% of the vote. I have no idea as to the veracity of this claim as I am not particularly interested in psepology? phespology? psheology? the study of elections. (Update: psephology, it’s psephology. Thank you Fraser Nelson)
But if it is true, and Londoners will choose not to have Brian as their next mayor then I cannot but think that it is really a truly sad thing for London, and politics as a whole.
Here is a REAL candidate, not someone put forward by the party through sheer weight of personality that has never been interested in the capital before, not someone who has used London as his own personal socialist state inviting dictators round for tea.
Here is a candidate who has a done a REAL job, one of the toughest, a police officer in London, and rose through the ranks due to outstanding ability to become one of the top cops in the city, not someone who has used his aristocratic connections to smarm his way through politics, or has backstabbed his way through the incestuous back channels of British socialism.
Here is a candidate with REAL values, liberal values which suit one of the most liberal cities in the world, not a right-winger who admires black people’s “Watermelon smiles” or a left-winger who hates all that do well in life but is happy to take money for himself and his cronies.
Here is a candidate with REAL integrity, who stood up to the top brass of the net when the did wrong and he wouldn’t go along with them and lost his job because of it, not someone who will leave the people who currently have elected him for the chance of a higher profile job, or someone who will not condemn suspicious activity even within his own staff.
Here is a candidate with REAL ideas, who will engage with people and stand down if he doesn’t fulfill his promises, not someone who won’t defend his ideas or someone who will renege on election promises.
So in London there is a REAL candidate, his name is Brian Paddick and he is the Liberal Democrat choice for Mayor. He is the only REAL choice.
