Ken Livingstone’s campaign team have published a list if 20 prominent figures in entertainment, the arts, and the environmental movement who have pledged to give him their first or second preference votes.
Many of the names on the list, which includes actress Prunella Scales and artist Banksy, are already familiar Livingstone backers.
Last June Scales joined the Mayor’s campaign to ‘save’ London’s Freedom Pass, whilst Banksy was one of 20 artists to donate art for an auction to raise money for Livingstone’s campaign.
The full list of supporters is – Damon Albarn, Banksy, Jo Brand, Bill Bailey, Billy Bragg, Tim Campbell (Apprentice winner), Anthony Gormley, Phill Jupitus, Peter Kennard, Alistair McGowan, Jonthan Porritt, Vince Power, Tony Robinson, Prunella Scales, Arthur Smith, Ralph Steadman, Emma Thompson, Vivienne Westwood, Richard Wilson and Robert Wyatt.
Mr Livingstone said that with polls showing he and Conservative candidate Boris Johnson were neck and neck “Every Londoner can now be sure their vote will count in this election”.
“The choice is clear on 1st May. London can vote to continue to move forward further as one of the world’s most forward looking and progressive cities, or it can retreat into a narrow, backward looking, Conservative London under Boris Johnson.”
Actor and former Labour NEC member Tony Robinson said Livingstone “wants London to be the number one city in the world, with transport to match, and more than anyone else in the country, he knows how to deliver it.”
Mr Livingstone will spend some of today campaigning alongside Gordon Brown. The pair will be visiting a Sikh temple for the Sikh New Year (Vaisakhi) celebration.
A spokesperson for Boris Johnson’s Mayoral Campaign said:
“Ken Livingstone says he wants to focus on policies and not celebrities and yet he does the opposite. On a day when Boris Johnson is meeting shopkeepers that have been robbed several times in this city, the Mayor chooses to focus on people who make the gossip pages and not the news pages.”
“Ken has said this election is not ‘Celebrity Big Brother’, yet clearly he is now trying to cover up for his lack of new ideas.”
Jason Plessas says
Excellent news and a good antidote to the Daily Telegraph today who said Ken had no high-profile support. They were head-over-heels about the fact that Dame Eileen Atkins has proven to be almost as reactionary as her Cranford alter-ego and come out in favour of Boris.
All this and now even YouGov have produced a poll showing the Boris’s ‘lead’ has been cut by more than half. Go on Ken!!!
(I’m not especially objective in this election as you may have realised)
Mary Gaskell says
It now appears that Ken’s campaign team failed to ask some of the people who appear on the list whether they would be supporting Ken’s re-election. Another example of Livingstone’s meglamania