Boris Johnson has a 6 point lead over rival Ken Livingstone according to a new YouGov poll for the Evening Standard.
53% of those polled said they would give Mr Johnson their first or second preference vote while 47% said they would back Mr Livingstone.
Today’s poll mirrors the result of a Comres poll jointly commissioned by the Standard, LBC and ITV London which also gave the incumbent a 6 point lead
In January Mr Livingstone’s promise to cut fares helped him win a 2 point lead.
However claims that he’d minimised his tax liability and a row over remarks about the voting intentions of Jewish Londoners have since overshadowed the Livingstone campaign.
45% who took part in last week’s poll said they are “less likely” to vote for him as a result of the negative headlines.
Although Johnson remains ahead in today’s poll, his lead has fallen since a YouGov poll released last month placed him 8 points ahead.
Today’s poll places Liberal Democrat candidate Brian Paddick third with 7% of respondents saying they will give him their first preference vote.
Green Party candidate Jennny Jones is fifth with 2% behind UKIP’s Lawrence Webb who scored 3%.
Candidates for Mayor include Jenny Jones (Green party), Ken Livingstone (Labour), Lawrence Webb (UKIP) Boris Johnson (Conservative) and Brian Paddick (Liberal Democrat). A full list of candidates can be found here.
Candidates standing as London Assembly constituency members can be found here. Candidates for the 11 Assembly London-wide seats can be found here.
Damian Hockney says
The poll is interesting, is it not, for the fact that (just like the mid March poll) the UKIP candidate for Mayor has greater support than the Green candidate, according to the Standard website and its listing of the poll in detail – and yet the anti-democratic BBC editorial guidelines allow the Green candidate something like 100 times the tv coverage than is permitted for UKIP. And restrict the UKIP candidate (along with BNP and the independent Siobhan Benita) to miniscule coverage, mostly carefully planned and done in advance to ensure they get the same tiny number of seconds.
Incidentally, has anyone else noticed that bookies odds have lifted Siobhan to third place. But polling gives no indication of this rise – it may just be a flurry of small to medium sized bets that has done it, but I wonder how the bookies will respond to these polls! With pleasure at taking a load of these bets, I should think, knowing most bookies:)
And btw have you looked at the same poll in its sensational predictions as to what will happen in the London Assembly? The BBC will have to put all its efforts into ensuring that its favoured candidates are re-elected, and that the predicted UKIP seat does not happen. No doubt they will carry on barring UKIP and carry on handing out enormous coverage to parties below UKIP in the polling…
Jim Jepps says
I think the most interesting part of this poll is the stonking lead it gives Labour in the Assembly vote despite the fact that more people will be voting Boris – in fact if this is the way the vote falls Labour will have a record number of AMs even while finding themselves unable to seize the crown.
Robin says
Damian ”THe Political class” will not give up until they are frogmarched to strasbourg or Bruxelles
Peter Hulme Cross says
Jim. Remember that the function of Assembly Members is to hold the Mayor to account and to make him justify his policies and actions in public. They are not there to support him although AMs from the same Party as the Mayor will inevitably do so. It makes sense therefore to have Labour AMs elected to the Assembly if there is a Conservative Mayor.
The only real power that Assembly Members have is to block the Mayor’s budget but they need a two thirds majority to do that. The Mayor can get his Annual Budget approved with only nine votes out of twenty five in his favour by Assembly Members.
During Boris’ term as Mayor from 2008 to 2012 he has had 11 Conservative Assembly Members, so he has always been assured of having his Budget approved.
During Ken Livingstone’s last term from 2004 to 2008 he had only 7 Labour Assembly Members. So he made an unofficial alliance with the 2 Greens on the Assembly. In return for their two votes at Budget time, he incorporated some of their Green policies in to his program. If elected again, I am sure Ken will work closely with the Greens once again.
Jim Jepps says
Hi Peter,
I agree. I’m not saying that this would be a wrong result in some way, what I’m saying is that it is interesting that there are a significant number of people who are voting Labour on the list who will be voting Boris / not voting Ken for Mayor.
In the past Ken has always been better liked than his party and this is a new situation and one I wouldn’t have predicted during the selection process.
Damian Hockney says
There is another thing if you drill down a little into polls on London Mayor and Assembly – without fail they over-estimate (or appear to over-allow for) those who say they are certain or almost certain to vote. The Yougov figures suggest they are allowing for an “almost certain to turn out ” 70%. Really? When did the turnout even approach 50%, never mind that 70%+. 56% say “certain” to vote. And of course this has skewed previous polls on London Mayor and possibly what caused two polls last year to give entirely different results on the basis of sampling within a few days of each other.