Boris now 12% ahead

According to a YouGov poll for today's Evening Standard.

• Boris 49%
• Livingstone 37%
• Brian Paddick 12%

It also shows Boris getting more second preference votes, 20%, than Livingstone, 17%.

Link: Previous YouGov poll had Boris Johnson 5% up.

Comments

[Yo rock]

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[Londoner]

Thank you Harry. This is extremely good news. I am not overconfident, but am daring to hope (but will be staggered if Boris really comes in 12% ahead).

[Londoner]

Really Gordon, "Yo rock" is such a pathetic disguise. Have you told Alistair to do this straight away or are you waiting until 2 May if Boris wins?

[Yo Yo]

COMMENT OVERWRITTEN.

[Yo Yo]

COMMENT OVERWRITTEN.

[Tony Makara]

Livingstone is living on borrowed time. Boris for London!

[Boris Miller]

Thank you for that encouraging information, Harry. In fact it's very sound, as Mr Dark used to say.

My fear is this: Ken and his inner circle of Socialist Action cronies will now, for the first time, realise that they are staring defeat in the face. The next month will be spent shredding paper, erasing files and generally removing all evidence of their misdeeds.

Worse, given that they are malignant Trots, they may seek ways of laying booby traps for Boris - hidden spending commitments, binding contracts, destruction of key information.

Action must be taken NOW - possibly by obtaining court injunctions - to stop this happening.

[MartinW]

That is very good news. I am confident that Boris will have a very strong team and, together, they will not only regain the respect the mayorality should have, but run London well.
BTW, the Sunday Times Magazine article by someone called John-Paul Flintoff (who he?) was a pretty nasty piece which reflected badly on that newspaper.

[snegchui]

I saw elsewhere that Ken is ending the spread of the bendy-bus. Maybe Boris will be able to have further successes in setting the agenda. Having been on one today, may I say they are horrible in rush-hour, clogged internally with no-one touching in and then clogging up the town-centre busstop as mass mayhem ensues in embarking and disembarking and busses queued up everywhere behind it. It is just so long it clogs the roads.

[Justin Hinchcliffe]

Hurrah!

[Sean Fear]

This should shut up even the most persistent of Labour trolls who like to come on here to trash Boris Johnson.

[James Earl]

I agree with Stephen Pollard in The Times today:

"In choosing a buffoon such as Boris Johnson as its candidate, the Conservative Party has revealed its own contempt for the electorate."

[Sammy Finn]

It must now be possible that Boris will get more than 50% of first preferences : winning in the first round.

[Simon Chapman]

James Earl,

Do you also agree with Stephen Pollard's advice to vote for Boris Johnson, in the same article?

[Daniel Emmett-Gulliver]

This is very good news! Out with the bad and in with Boris!!!!

[Big Ed]

__________
I agree with Stephen Pollard in The Times today:

"In choosing a buffoon such as Boris Johnson as its candidate, the Conservative Party has revealed its own contempt for the electorate."

Posted by: James Earl | March 17, 2008 at 13:05
______

James, why don't you think before you type?

How is it contemptious if Londoners elect Boris as their mayor? (which they clearly are going to do)

[Kevin Davis]

I have always thought You Gov's methodology to be pretty good. However this poll, coupled with yesterdays Con lead of 16%, is making me a little nervous. Can there really have been that much change in such a short time? I am not sure that much of the mayoral debate - even the scandals of Ken - are penetrating through the news.

Still, that said, we should be rejoicing if this is a true picture.

[Phil Whittington]

This is certainly turning into a very exciting race.

If nothing else Boris has reinvigorated London politics and made it interesting again.

If you read the views of Boris from the people who know him, they all say that while he has various organisational weaknesses, he is brilliant at delegation and I think, though this, we will get his strengths and those of other people.

I think he will start to roll back the angry pigeon-holing of Londoners by race and lead a city that begins to feel at ease with itself.

I'm a chippy grammar school boy at heart, but also prone to bouts of romanticism over people like Boris.

Seeing Johnson, conforming exactly to one of the Old Etonian stereotypes (and Cameron another), speak up more for London's disadvantaged than Ken ever has, will remind people about one of the best things about the Tories.

PW

[Buckinghamshire Tory]

I agree with Phil Whittington.

Now Boris Johnson just need to consolidate his lead, since the struggle against Socialist Ken is far from over.

Seeing Boris Johnson as the new Mayor of London would be the jewell in the crown of the Council-elections in May.

The resulting surge in support would make it all the easier to win the subsequent by-election in Henley, which isn't a difficult place for the Tories in the first place.

[James Earl]

"How is it contemptious if Londoners elect Boris as their mayor? (which they clearly are going to do)"

Because he isn't up to the job of being Mayor, as Stephen explains in his article, and elsewhere. Indeed, as many, many others have explained elsewhere.

[James Earl]

"How is it contemptious if Londoners elect Boris as their mayor? (which they clearly are going to do)"

Because he isn't up to the job of being Mayor, as Stephen explains in his article, and elsewhere. Indeed, as many, many others have explained elsewhere.

[Serf]

In choosing a buffoon such as Boris Johnson as its candidate, the Conservative Party has revealed its own contempt for the electorate.

Stephen Pollard, whose views I normally enjoy reading, is simply making a complete tit of himself. Boris was chosen by open primary. If opening up selection in this way is "contempt for the electorate" I hate to think what he thinks of Gordon Brown and his mislaid referendum promise.

[Mike Dark]

Great News. The quicker we get rid of red Ken the better for all of us. Next aim: Get rid of Brown, Darling and the rest of this shower that have been in for far too long.

[StevenAdams]

Amen, Serf. Earl's comments are ill-thought, as are Pollards. I don't hate anyone for their politics, though I may disagree with them. However, Leavingsoon's arrogant disregard for the GLA, and the public therefore, I find spectacularly odious.