LONDON, 4 May 2008 — As Boris Johnson settles down in City Hall as London’s new mayor after his victory over incumbent Ken Livingstone in Thursday’s mayoral election, ending an eight-year reign, the ruling Labour Party hierarchy is still reeling from what many newspapers here are calling the ‘May Day Massacre.’
Londoners had to wait till almost midnight on Friday thanks to a new electronic vote counting system and an unusually high voter turnout, but at the end of the day the wait was worth the while for 44-year-old father-of-four, Johnson, the maverick Conservative candidate.
Johnson, who is also MP for Henley-on-Thames and a journalist, won by 140,000 votes getting some 53 percent of the vote, compared to Livingstone’s 47 percent. Johnson amassed 1,168,738 first and second preference votes, compared with Livingstone’s 1,028,966 on a record turnout of 45 percent.
Livingstone was a popular candidate in the inner city Labour strongholds, especially among the Liberal left and minority communities. Dr. Azzam Tamimi even launched a campaign group “Muslims-4-Ken,” but this seems to have backfired, as the majority of Londoners decided that it was time for a change after eight years of Mayor Livingstone in City Hall. Johnson did particularly well in the outer suburbs of Greater London where the Conservative Party managed to get its supporters to come out and vote in droves despite the dreadful rainy weather on polling day. Not that Johnson needs to prove his own community credentials. Had his Ottoman Turkish grandfather not changed his surname to Johnson, he could very well have gone under the original family name as Boris Osman Ali. He was born in New York in 1964 as Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was, until recently, an American citizen. But he is of upper class Ottoman descent. His great-grandfather, Ali Kemal, a journalist, was interior minister in the government of Ahmed Tevfik Pasha, Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. Johnson’s grandfather, Osman Ali, took refuge in the UK in the 1920s and assumed the name Wilfred Johnson.
Not surprisingly, the Johnson clan, led by dad Stanley, an environment writer and former member of the European Parliament (MEP) in Brussels, were celebrating with party members and campaign helpers well into the early hours of yesterday morning. Conservative Party leader David Cameron was cock-a-hoop, even posting his joyous reaction in a short videotape on YouTube. Cameron praised Johnson for a “serious and energetic campaign” and said his party was “winning the battle of ideas.”
Johnson’s victory has culminated in a clean sweep for the Conservative Party in the local and London mayoral elections — the largest share of the vote at 44 percent compared with 25 percent for the Liberal Democrats and 24 percent for the Labour Party; the most councilors; and control of the capital city of London.
In contrast, for the Labour Party, Livingstone’s defeat ended what Prime Minister Gordon Brown called a “bad and disappointing” day for Labour, in which it suffered its worst town hall results in England and Wales for 40 years.
Johnson, who studied classics at Oxford, paid handsome tribute to Mayor Livingstone and even hinted at a possible role in his administration for both his two main rivals — Ken Livingstone and Liberal Democrat Brian Paddick, the former assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.
One of Johnson’s first acts after the results were declared was to sign the official Declaration of Office at City Hall. He urged people to help build upon the “very considerable achievements of the last mayor of London.”
He told Livingstone, “You shaped the office of mayor. You gave it national prominence and when London was attacked on July 7, 2005, you spoke for London. I salute the courage and the sheer exuberant nerve with which you stuck it to your enemies, especially in New Labour.”
He said he would be the mayor of all Londoners and would work to earn the trust of those voters who had voted against him and had opposed him.
“I will work flat out to repay and to justify your confidence. We have a new team ready to go into City Hall. Where there have been mistakes we will rectify them, where there are achievements we will build on them, where there are neglected opportunities we will seize on them.”
He added this his priorities are reducing crime, especially on buses and trains, by promoting 24-hour policing; improving transport, including promoting cycling; introducing more green spaces; building affordable homes and getting value for money for taxpayers.
Johnson acknowledged that his victory does not mean that London has become Conservative in its support. Instead, he believed it showed the Conservative Party had changed “into a party that can be trusted after 30 years with the greatest, most cosmopolitan, multi-racial generous hearted city on earth.”
Livingstone similarly was humble and generous in defeat, thanking the Labour Party for its magnificent support, and Londoners. He stressed that his defeat was not down to the woes of the Labour Government, but was his own responsibility. He apologized to his supporters and Londoners for letting them down by not winning the election.
“There is absolutely nothing that I could have asked from the Labour Party that it didn’t throw into this election, from Gordon Brown right the way down to the newest recruit, handing out leaflets on very wet, cold days. I’m sorry I couldn’t get an extra few points that would take us to victory and the fault for that is solely my own. You can’t be mayor for eight years and then if you don’t at third term say it was somebody else’s fault. I accept that responsibility and I regret that I couldn’t take you to victory,” he explained.
Johnson is now being propelled as the national and international face of London. His flamboyant Bertie Wooster character has landed him in trouble several times in the past, giving the impression more of a court jester than a serious politician.
But his Tory Party minders made sure that his mayoral election campaign was gaffe-free.
He has attracted either great support or opprobrium by the media. While the right-wing London Evening Standard openly supported him and pilloried Livingstone, the left-wing Guardian newspaper ran a series of scurrilous personal attacks on Johnson.
