How Ken could beat the blond bombshell

12 April 2012

Jeepers, as the man himself might say: what a treat is in store for Londoners over the next nine months. Forget Hillary v Barack.

The real political action of 2008, the mightiest slugfest, will be right here in London, as Ken dukes it out with Boris King Newt v the Blond Pretender.

Everyone will be relishing that prospect except, perhaps, Ken Livingstone himself. Until Boris Johnson dived in, the Tory barrel contained only minnows who would have detained the Mayor no longer than a pre-breakfast snack.

Now that you think about it, even the bigger fish sought by David Cameron Michael Portillo, Sebastian Coe, John Major, Greg Dyke would probably have been gobbled up pretty swiftly.

But Johnson could pose a genuine threat to the Mayor's hopes for re-election.

He begins with instant name recognition.

He's a celebrity and, according to the anecdotal evidence, a popular one. I spoke to a voluntary sector bigwig yesterday who said the last person he'd seen work a room like Boris was Bill Clinton.

What's more, he confronts Livingstone with several of Livingstone's own advantages. He can pose as the rebel, the man who breaks all the rules (though he cannot, as Ken could in 2000, claim to be running in defiance of his party machine). Like Ken, he doesn't speak politician but English (albeit in a unique, Enid Blyton-esque dialect).

When it comes to unstuffy unpredictability, and poking the Establishment in the eye, he could out-Ken Ken.

MORE prosaically, Boris could succeed where the previous Tory challenger, the twicedefeated Steve Norris, failed: by mobilising the entire Conservative vote in London, appealing to both Middle England types in Bromley and metrosexuals in Notting Hill.

Some Boris boosters believe he could also win over Lib-Dems drawn to his libertarian bent and younger voters who might otherwise not turn out.

If this is the scale of the Boris challenge, what can Ken do to beat it back, to stay in the job he loves?

An appealing first move would be to neutralise Boris's celebrity.

I noticed in conversations with the Ken camp yesterday that they referred to the Tory would-be candidate as "Johnson" rather than by his first name.

A small thing, and it could be futile, but it gives a clue to the thinking in City Hall.

Next will come an attempt to use Boris's fame against him.

As a prolific commentator, Johnson leaves behind a voluminous paper trail: Ken's team will be poring over every column, essay and outburst in the Boris canon, hoping to dig out words their new opponent will regret.

He's said so much about so many things, the Livingstone people are unlikely to be disappointed.

And it won't just be words that could haunt him.

Labour can gently remind Londoners of Boris Johnson's proven role in helping a convicted fraudster fellow Old Etonian Darius Guppy have a journalist beaten up.

A tape recording had Johnson not questioning the morality of the action, merely asking how badly the intended victim was to be hurt.

With the tabloids now regarding candidate Johnson as a legitimate target, more skeletons could soon be exhumed.

It is at least conceivable that Johnson may stumble, as Jeffrey Archer did before him, before he gets to next May's election.

Meanwhile, Livingstone will do his best to drag the contest onto the terrain of policy, where he reckons Boris is weakest.

Ken's already taunting him over his failure to vote in the House of Commons on crucial London questions, from Crossrail to free travel for the elderly and disabled. He can demand Boris tell us where he stands on the congestion charge: opposing it would be green suicide with the capital's environment groups, yet London

Tories have fought against it. So far, as Ken himself has noted, the Tories have kept Boris from facing any questions letting everyone, from Cameron down, speak on his behalf.

That's surely an indication that the candidate doesn't yet have the answers.

THEY'LL try to get him, too, on non-London matters, seeking to position Boris as outside the London consensus.

Livingstone has been brilliant in winning over this city's ethnic minorities: how will London's Muslims react to Johnson's support for the Iraq war, for example (a war which, according to one poll, enjoyed the backing of just 18 per cent of Londoners)?

The aim will be to get Londoners to see past the gags and jolly japes and find a man too Right-wing for this city.

Or as one Ken aide puts it: "Johnson is a reactionary in buffoon's clothing."

Class may well be part of the assault, too. Gordon Brown has stumbled in trying to target Cameron's poshness, but something tells me Livingstone is the one politician who with a welljudged joke could pull it off.

Perhaps by branding Boris as the Bertie Wooster candidate, out of touch with the reality of ordinary Londoners' lives.

Above all, Livingstone will try to play to his one clear advantage over Johnson.

OK, the Mayor will say: if this was a contest to choose a new host for Have I Got News For You, then maybe it would be a close call.

But this is not about being a laugh. This is about running a city and Boris Johnson is simply not up to that task.

For my money, this is the decisive argument. Johnson may well be amusing.

But the questions Londoners must answer is whether he is the man they would want to lead the response to another 7/7.

Could he handle the collapse of Metronet?

Could he really make the complex set of financial and political judgments relating to Crossrail?

Ask those who take some of the most crucial decisions in London and they already know the answer: it can't be Boris.

Yet there is a risk in this approach for Ken.

To cast himself as the solid, statesmanlike man of competence against lovable Boris would be to cede one of his biggest advantages.

So Livingstone has to carry on being fun, too. Luckily, he still has that knack.

Handed a biography of Johnson, he said it was the scariest book he'd read since The Silence of the Lambs.

This is how Ken has to define the battle ahead insisting that he'll match Boris for laughs, but that he'll be able to run this city at the same time.

And that's a boast the chaotic blond whirlwind just cannot make..

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