Ken Livingstone, Boris Johnson, and Brian Paddick spent this morning at the Reuters Mayoral Hustings at Reuters House, Canary Wharf where they addressed an audience of business leaders and journalists.
The event started with each candidate setting out their vision for the Capital, from Livingstone and Johnson this was largely a restatement of past promises on Metronet (Ken), the £25 congestion charge (Ken & Boris – different promises!), crime reduction (Boris) and, perhaps for the first time, Boris revealed he’d offered Ken an advisory role if he wins next month.
Brian Paddick seemed to spend much of his time talking about participating in the marathon and his police career.
A number of those present were visibly bored but he grabbed attentions when he engaged in possibly the most negative comments of the campaign, making direct references to recent stories about Boris and drugs and claims of heavy drinking by Livingstone.
The previously bored attendees winced at the remarks and afterwards many said he’d struck a duff note and missed a vital opportunity to impress.
The speeches were followed by a question and answer session in which Johnson and Livingstone agreed on many issues including the use of hand-held scanners by the police to combat knives and guns.
Paddick attacked Ken for seeking to encourage tourism from China while opposing more runways at Heathrow, both Boris and Ken were against plans to tax non-doms.
Asked who each would save in an Apprentice-style run-off Brian brought up allegations of ‘malpractice’ at the LDA (something Boris also later brought up) and attacked Boris’s “lack of experience” at delivering, something Ken also sought to highlight when he said the biggest the biggest decision Boris had made as an editor was where to for lunch.
Paddick refused to say who his backers should give their second preference votes to.
Boris called on Londoners to sack Ken who in turn said Paddick was making himself look “a complete fool” by refusing to endorse either of the other candidates.
There was a hustings with no clear winner but Paddick is going to have to rethink the voter-repelling negativity he seems intent on deploying.
James says
I hear that Boris clearly won in an audience vote at the end
chris says
This report sounds very biased against Paddick. Pretty much every reference is negative. Mentioning a police career is integral to his major promise to reduce crime year on year due to the experience it gives him. Running the marathon shows that he is an integral part of the city and a Londoner at heart, who is interested in the opportunity for sports and activities in the capital and creating a more people-friendly london.
Also, I’m sure Boris raised a few eyebrows with his comments but the report never mentioned anything about their responses to his speech or Ken’s speech for that matter. I am surprised and disappointed at the uneven coverage of the event from such a respectable news source.
Martin Hoscik (Editor) says
Hi Chris
This is an opinion piece and as someone who was there my opinion is as above – sorry if that doesn’t accord with your wants but that’s how it is.
And FWIW it wasn’t just my opinion – speaking to the press pack and attendees afterwards the overwhelming expressed view was that Brian was needlessly negative and failed to inspire.
You may be impressed with a candidate who starts a time limited pitch by trying to score points for being the only candidate to have run the marathon a few days before but the audience in the room weren’t.
By the time the comments got to Brian having been moved from Lambeth owing to his local popularity people were starting to get restless and variations of ‘stop preening’ could be heard from all directions.
Martin (Editor) says
Chris
As I say this was a common view:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-leads-in-race-for-mayor-that-is-all-about-personality-809630.html
Damian Hockney AM, One London Party says
Paddick’s remarks elsewhere about Livingstone being ‘nasty’ were also part of this rather silly development…but of course when the candidates effectively offer very similar platforms, all lite on real detail or alternative vision, this is what you get. The only way to diifferentiate then is on personalised campaigning, attacks, smears and the use of media to make slurs stick. Usually the politicians get their teams to spread the smears. The shame is that so much of the media think this is what the voters are interested in. The voters are as bored as the Reuters audience…