YouGov poll : Livingstone back in the hunt

Of the many, many innocuous comments of mine that were randomly deleted by the Tory moderators at Political Betting in the 48 hours prior to me finally taking the hint, one was in response to regular poster Antifrank, who clearly felt he was saying something deeply controversial (he probably was in PB terms) when he observed : "In my judgement, Nicolas Sarkozy has less chance of winning the French presidential election than Ken Livingstone has of being elected Mayor of London". I can't remember exactly how I replied (or tried to reply), but the gist of it was "well, yes, obviously". That sentiment has now been borne out by the latest YouGov poll on the London mayoral race, which shows a virtual dead heat -

First round

Boris Johnson (Conservative) 43% (-2)
Ken Livingstone (Labour) 41% (+1)
Brian Paddick (Liberal Democrat) 8% (+1)
Lawrence Webb (UKIP) 3% (-)
Siobhan Benita (Independent) 3% (+1)
Jenny Jones (Green) 2% (-)
Carlos Cortiglia (BNP) 1% (-)

Second round

Boris Johnson (Conservative) 51% (-2)
Ken Livingstone (Labour) 49% (+2)

Ir remains to be seen whether the closing of the gap is real or an artifact of the margin of error. One thing is clear, however - Alan Sugar's delusional attempt to 'instruct' his Twitter followers to desert Livingstone has had zero effect, as always seemed likely. If the power of celebrity was in itself enough to decide elections, Robert Kilroy-Silk would by now be well into his second term at the helm of a Veritas government.

Labour should take heed of that truth, because it seems to be Sugar's celebrity that saved him from the fate that would befall any other Labour parliamentarian who recommended that Labour voters should vote against the party - instant withdrawal of the whip. Why he's seen as an indispensable asset when he has a crazy-paving history of past political endorsements that makes Jim Sillars look (almost) consistent is beyond me. As for Sugar's Apprentice sidekick Karren Brady, she went down several notches in my estimation with her absurd 'sporting analogy' intervention in the AV referendum last year (on behalf of the No side, naturally).

Turning to the French election, one thing that came out of the BBC coverage last night is that, astonishingly, the US has nothing on France when it comes to feverish election rallies. I may want Sarkozy to lose, but it was hard not to feel a tingle down the spine as his supporters chanted his name and waved flags. And I kind of understood for the first time why he won five years ago - he did a disarming "Da da!" hand gesture as he took to the stage, as if he'd just performed an amazing conjuring trick, as opposed to becoming the first incumbent President not to top the first round poll. His perfect showmanship continued as he pushed all the right buttons with his speech, and whipped the crowd up into an even more frenzied state. But thankfully for France and for Europe it looks as if, this time round, stardust will be his enemy and not his friend.

Second preferences are second preferences - unless you're Tom Harris, obviously...

One thing I find quite amusing about Tom Harris' rabid opposition to even the most trivial electoral reform is that every time he opens his mouth on the subject he reveals just how hopelessly (or perhaps willfully) he misunderstands it. Tonight he's trying to incite the Labour NEC to expel Ken Livingstone for helping the campaign of Lutfur Rahman, who is standing against the official Labour candidate for the mayoralty of Tower Hamlets. (Would it be too cynical of me to suggest that Tom has yet to reconcile himself to the prospect of a non-Blairite Labour candidate for London mayor in 2012, and is desperately scrabbling around for a get-out clause?) The point is that Livingstone was merely campaigning for second preference votes for Rahman, who he felt had been wrongly deselected by Labour after being chosen by party members as the official mayoral candidate. Tom regards this as a self-evidently lame excuse, and goes on to assert that "even in a ballot conducted under the Alternative Vote, Labour Party members should only campaign for the Labour candidate".

This is plainly nonsensical. It was Labour that gave people two preferences - and yet it's supposed to only want them to use one? A second preference vote, regardless of which candidate it is for, cannot possibly harm the official Labour candidate as long as the first preference vote was for him. Does Tom understand this simple principle? I think there are two possibilities - either he doesn't, or he is extremely keen to sow confusion in the minds of others about it. Actually, his post is rather revealing about one of his true reasons for being such a reform-phobe - clearly he cannot stomach any change that undermines the absolutist partisan tribalism he needs for comfort. "I can vote for Labour, and for someone else as well? I feel faint!"

In contrast, I doubt Tower Hamlets voters will have thought any less of Livingstone for being capable of thinking beyond the party line now and again, and indeed, if the party hierarchy are mature enough to accept the perfectly rational justification for his display of free-thinking, the incident might even end up helping Labour's image by extension. Something else that Tom would doubtless find utterly incomprehensible.

Is Ken about to strike a blow against the cult of youth in UK politics?

If Oona King had been selected as Labour's London mayoral candidate today, and a Tory spokesman had reacted by poking fun at her gender or ethnicity, that spokesman would probably already have been fired. So why is it seemingly perfectly acceptable for him to instead sarcastically characterise Ken Livingstone as a "game old boy" who has been "exhumed" by Labour? It's hard to escape the conclusion that ageism is still considered a legitimate mine for political discourse, where racism and sexism long since ceased to be.

Even sober political observers are today wondering if Labour have made a mistake solely on the grounds of Ken's age, with Mike Smithson of Political Betting asking -

"But is Ken the right man to be the flag-bearer? In politics generally the baton is being passed to a younger generation. If Ed Miliband gets it tomorrow then Ken will be a quarter of a century older than his party leader."

Quite honestly, that consideration is gloriously irrelevant. Labour has at least an 80% chance of reclaiming the mayoralty in 2012, and that has very little to do with Ken Livingstone at all, let alone his date-of-birth or his hairline. My fears for next year's Holyrood election are primarily based on the fact that, as the party (wrongly) perceived as the "alternative to the Tories", Labour can expect to prosper when an unpopular Tory government is in power at Westminster - and that logic applies even in an election where the Tories are not their opponents. It will apply a hundred times over in part 2 of the Boris and Ken show. Hopefully one of the effects of the outcome will be to make people question their irrational assumptions about the value of always picking the younger candidate, regardless of other qualities.