![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Londoners; when you vote for the Mayor on Thursday, please remember that this is not a first-past-the-post election. I've never liked the usual defeatist line about votes for third parties being wasted; here it simply isn't true, and anyone who says otherwise is either underinformed or has a covert agenda. Here's m'learned colleague's explanation of how the system works, but in summary: if you're just voting Ken To Stop Boris, or Boris To Stop Ken, then your second preference vote is perfectly adequate to that task. Give Brian Paddick a chance, or Sian Berry, with the first preference, if only to help erode the deeply unsatisfactory idea of the two party system; a little more each time and maybe next election, it could even be a real three way battle. Or four.
And no, I'm not saying this as part of some convoluted plan to get Boris in; it's just about really wanting Ken out. For his cronyism, appointing unqualified members of his old fringe socialist group to high power at our expense. For smearing Peter Tatchell when Tatchell dared to criticise one of Ken's fundamentalist associates. For endorsing the appalling George Galloway's bid for a London Assembly seat. For describing Boris as a "19th century liberal, with a small L", and yet somehow intending that great compliment as a criticism.
I voted for Ken last time, albeit with reservations; I still think he did a lot of good in his first term. But this last term, the balance has tipped. London is not his personal fiefdom, and I would like to see him reminded of that, at the very least by a shaky performance in the first round.
And no, I'm not saying this as part of some convoluted plan to get Boris in; it's just about really wanting Ken out. For his cronyism, appointing unqualified members of his old fringe socialist group to high power at our expense. For smearing Peter Tatchell when Tatchell dared to criticise one of Ken's fundamentalist associates. For endorsing the appalling George Galloway's bid for a London Assembly seat. For describing Boris as a "19th century liberal, with a small L", and yet somehow intending that great compliment as a criticism.
I voted for Ken last time, albeit with reservations; I still think he did a lot of good in his first term. But this last term, the balance has tipped. London is not his personal fiefdom, and I would like to see him reminded of that, at the very least by a shaky performance in the first round.
Tags:
