Rattled Labour plan negative campaign against "odious" Boris Johnson

Sky.com is reporting that Labour is planning an all-out negative assault on Tory mayoral candidate Boris Johnson.  The attacks will be led by Communities Secretary Hazel Blears at Labour's spring conference beginning today in Birmingham. 

Ms Blears is expected to say: "Boris is no joke. He's a nasty, right-wing elitist, with odious views and criminal friends like Conrad Black."

The negative attacks may be a reaction to Ken Livingstone's deteriorating poll position.  Earlier this week a YouGov poll of more than 1,000 London voters gave Boris Johnson a 5% lead.  An analysis by PoliticalBetting.com of an older MORI poll, carried out for the Livingstone campaign, showed Boris Johnson beginning to win the crucial second preference votes.

7pm: Hazel's charm offensive continues. RedBox's Sam Coates reports:

"It's bash Boris day, as the sharp-quilled yet perfectly attired Broganblog has highlighted. The attack dogs today are Hazel Blears and Tessa Jowell. Both formerly strong Blairites, they nevertheless get the "leftie-ometer" ringing quite loud with quite vicious class attacks on Boris and "Dave". It seems that if you can't do left, do class.

Hazel, in particular, related a frankly rather unpleasant tale of how she ambushed Daid Cameron at Salford "Lad's Club". He was there to get an autograph from members of The Smiths, who were performing. So the Communities Secretary organised an ambush mob with signs saying "Oi Dave - Eton's Lads' Club is 300 miles that way" and "Salford Lads not Eton snobs". He was forced out the back door and went home without an autograph.

And that night I sent him a photo of me outside Salford's Lads' Club, with greetings from Salford!

Charming..."

Comments

[Josh]

"BROKE!"

Scottish Labour's last words

[Tim]

Hmmmm, so who is the nasty party again? Cheap shots like this detract from the actual contest itself and will turn people off. People want politicians to concentrate on making their lives better, not public slagging matches. Ms Blears and the rest of her chums would do well to reconsider such churlish activities.

One could equally say of Mr Livingstone - He is a joke. He's a nasty left-wing communist, with odious views and criminal friends like Fidel Castro...

This is just silly.

[alex]

It does sound like the approach Labour took in Scotland just before they got booted out. Let's not get down in the gutter with these guys - I don't think the general public take what they say seriously. Boris is self-evidently a mainstream, pragmatic Conservative.

At the talk I attended the other dau he talked about how to help more people buy their own home, how to combat fear of crime on the streets and how to improve public transport. That's what Londonders want to hear.

[ChrisD]

But Labour and Ken's cronies have been running a very negative campaign against Boris from the start, so I am just wondering how much more negative and nasty they can get?
The Scottish Labour party tried this type of campaign against Salmond and the SNP in the last Holyrood elections, it backfired, more notable because the SNP ran a positive one which made the contrast even more stark.
This could end up not just damaging Ken's chances during the Mayoral election, it could also do Labour irreparable damage with a GE only two years away at most.

[James Burdett]

Bring it on, the public won't buy that Boris is nasty. This will rebound on Labour. Also it has 'core vote strategy' written all over it, and they always work don't they!

[Josh]

Also it has 'core vote strategy' written all over it, and they always work don't they!

They do work...

when your goal is to minimise the scale of defeat rather than achieve victory.

[Oscar Miller]

Don't forget that Ken is pouring resources into GLA free newspapers to promote his cause. People are being inundated with tax payer funded promotion of Ken. Boris has nothing like this.

[CONfused]

I haven;t had the Londoner for ages and purdah kicks in soon, so I doubt we will see that in use.

Not that anyone takes what Harriet Harman or Hazel Blears says seriously, but you can't paint Boris as a rightwing ideologue considering he spent the best part of the 1980s in the SDP!

[Sean Fear]

That's a good point, Josh. Core vote strategies do work, to that extent.

But as a strategy for winning, they don't. And hurling smears at Johnson won't work either. For all I know, Johnson may be a "right wing extremist", but he didn't campaign for Sinn Fein in the 1980s, or suck up to Al Qardawi, Fidel Castro, and Hugo Chavez twenty years on. He may well be a friend of Conrad Black, but Labour's friends include the late Robert Maxwell, and the living David Blunkett, John Prescott, and David Abrahams, so they aren't in a position to throw mud.

[James Burdett]

Sean - They might not be in a position to throw mud but you can bet your sweet life it won't stop them.

[Yogi]

Livingstone has embarked on the destruction of London and he is hand in glove with the hate preachers in this. Has anyone noticed that the latest? Whitehall is now being narrowed, this follows the narrowing of The Strand a couple of years ago. At this rate the major London thoroughfares will all grind to a halt and local businesses destroyed while the International banks and other financial institutions will up sticks and go to Frankfurt.

Then there is the cultural vandalism - tall ugly glass and concrete towers being given planning permission wily nilly and some of the high rise appartments in already congested transport bottlenecks like the Lots Road development in Chelsea.

I always suspected that Livingstone is being paid by the Cubans and the venezuelans to destroy London.

Livingstone is the living embodiment of Dr Jekyll and Hyde - he is a friend of the Hate preachers and at the same time under the pretext of security is busy building the infrastructures for a Police State. He presides over a rotten and corrupt City Hall and it is only now in the form of that miniature Hazel Blears it really has emerged. NuLab hates capitalism and created the monstrosity in the form of London Mayor.

NuLab has always been in it together with Livingstone

[Patsy Sergeant]

Sean @ 10.30 - Its a pity you couldn't put your last two sentences on large posters and place them around London, because I am sure the average person doesn't make that link, AND THEY SHOULD BE INFORMED.

Its predictable to see Ms. Blears with her trademark smirk, if she goes ahead with her reported intentions, she will only confirm what so many people know already, and many more becoming aware of, that this is the most mendacious government of recent times, who will stop at nothing short of ..mayhem, to stay in power.

[Roger Evans]

Bring it on - this strategy will cost Labour assembly seats as well as the Mayoralty.

We should remind people of the (only) wise words of Neil Kinnock - 'Everyone likes Ken, except the people who know him.'

[Tony Makara]

Character assassination just won't work on Boris, he is too affable a chap and his natural sense of humour will deflect the defamation. While we are in nasty mode it has to be said that clown-features Blears has a history of playing the hate card and there is something inherently childish about her. My advise to clown-face is to go and put on her prettiest gingham dress and go and 'play cakes' again with Andrew Neil because thats all she is fit for, how could a woman of such low intellect and such a sniping personality ever get elected? Hazel Blears is really living up to her image as the queen of clowns. All she needs now is a red nose and red buttons would be out of a job.

[jeff]

"Hazel Blears is really living up to her image as the queen of clowns"

Boris Johnson is the clown.

[Malcolm Dunn]

Brilliant post jeff. You really are the master of wit and repartee aren't you?

[jeff]

"You really are the master of wit and repartee aren't you?" Really? Try Andrew Sullivan.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com

"The calibre of their spokesmen also needs looking at. I was astonished, as someone removed from British politics for a long while, to find that one of the party’s media stars is Boris Johnson. I knew Boris two decades ago and played an infinitesimal part in helping him advance in student politics. And there he was on the BBC, a Tory star, performing the same pathetic schtick he had deployed at university 20 years ago.

After all this time, I expected perhaps a new maturity, a sense of what he believed in. But he’s still a preposterous, if amusing, ra-ra playing a preposterous, if amusing, rara. My American friends asked about the hair. I explained it’s a prop, the kind of thing a TV personality deploys to cover a lack of material. How, I wonder, can a British voter take seriously a party that presents him as a spokesman?"

[Yet Another Anon]

Ken Livingstone is odious including having had links with Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA and has had for many years.

He has condemned military action by successive governments and is a fanatical unilateralist - at least in these respects there is little he can do as Mayor of London.

Both Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone are unsuited to the job of Mayor of London, both are too whimsical and unreliable to be in such a commanding role, Ken Livingstone is not fit to hold any office - Boris Johnson was somewhat suited to being a backbencher and editor of the Spectator.

[JonathanHoffman]

Livingstone's latest insult to London's Jewish Community was to lie about the late Chief Rabbi, Lord Jakobovits. Livingstone did this in order to 'justify' his own antisemitic comment that 'Israel should never have been created'. London needs a Mayor that commands respect, not one whose every instinct is for divisive sectarian tactics. Boris, you cannot arrive in City Hall too soon.

[Jonathan]

www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1204213983825&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Here's the LLL (Latest Livingstone Lie)

[John Wilkin]

"But he’s still a preposterous, if amusing, ra-ra playing a preposterous, if amusing, rara. My American friends asked about the hair. I explained it’s a prop, the kind of thing a TV personality deploys to cover a lack of material.

Needless to say I don't accept that assessment - but someone who fitted that description exactly would be better for London than the pro IRA, pro Castro, pro Chavez, anti-semite who currently holds the office of London Mayor

[John Wilkin]

Do people actually read "The Londoner"?

[Iain Lindley]

Glad to see Hazel has her priorities right!

She’s directly responsible as Communities Secretary for the worst grant settlement to Salford City Council in decades. The Government - of which she is a prominent member - are closing the maternity and neo-natal unit at Salford Royal (Hope) Hospital and as local MP Hazel described this as “good news”. The Government also approved the Council’s shambolic BSF plans which had to be redrafted due to an inability to count and which still involve the closure of one of the best schools in the City. Her department promised massive investment into East Manchester through the supercasino, which has now been withdrawn and replaced by empty promises, lies and spin.

Hazel clearly has her focus well and truly set on the issues that matter to local residents in Salford and across Greater Manchester… not schools, hospitals, council services or regeneration, but setting up a childish ambush of the Leader of the Opposition during his visit to Salford Lads’ Club. Bravo Hazel, your constituents will be proud!

[Patsy Sergeant]

Iain Lindley @ 11.08 - Regarding the smirking ones tactics and behaviour in Salford. The first thing that comes to my mind as I read your post, is that Salford Council (City or whatever) sounds as if it must be conservative, because I wouldn't have thought she would have dared to behave like that if it was/is a labour council.

Madame Blears does her party no favours, neither in the short run or in the long run, by behaving like she insists on doing. Her behaviour may well be entirely familiar - and approved of by some trade unions, but until this government changed people's perceptions of politicians e.g. two jabs, within months of being in office!, politicians tried (on the whole fairly successfully) to convince people that they were in Westminster for the benefit of the public!

[karen]

I prefer Portillo's assessment:

"When I first met Boris Johnson, I marked him down as unserious. He came to interview me as defence secretary and arrived 45 minutes late. Apparently, experienced political journalist that he was, he had thought the ministry was in Victoria Street, not in Whitehall. He had the decency to look flushed and sweaty, but also gave the impression that I should find his shambolic performance endearing. I pretended to do so.

The Conservatives may sigh at losing one of their few figures who was interesting to the public. But his charisma could not be bottled and sold to boost Tory fortunes. Bumbling Boris is a good television act to set alongside other endearing television creations, such as Dawn French’s vicar and Joanna Lumley’s dipsomaniac, but it is too remote from ordinary voters and could never have translated into anything politically useful.

When Johnson went to Liverpool recently to apologise for an article in The Spectator, many people failed to recognise him. It is remarkable that the Tories’ nearest brush with the cool side of life is represented by Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson of Eton and Balliol. His background puts him scarcely closer to real life than the Prince of Wales’s."

[tory mayor fan]

It's a shame that no-one qualified put their name forward. Perhaps we will get someone next time.

[jeff]

Weren't there any other members of the Bullingdon club available? Perhaps they were all still drunk, or smashing up the local pub or restaurant?

Oh well, Stephen Pollard said it best:

"And that's my problem with Boris. It has nothing to do with his personal life, which I think is a red herring. It's that I think he is a buffoon. I simply don't buy this idea that beneath the exterior lies a piercingly sharp interior. I just think what you see is what you get - a teriffic writer, a wonderfully comical speaker, and a figure who shouldn't have even the tiniest real influence on anything of importance.

"The idea that Boris Johnson might be the man to represent London on the world stage just embarrasses me. And I have seen no evidence - not just little evidence, but no evidence - that he has any worthwhile contribution to make on public policy issues or that he has any kind of vision for London, let alone the ability to implement it.

"Talk about an impossible choice: al-Qaradawi's PR man or a buffoon."

[Jonathan Hoffman]

A Plea to all fellow Londoners: Please do not re-elect as our Mayor a man who makes an antisemitic comment and then tries to justify it by a lying smear of a former Chief Rabbi who is no longer alive to rebut the lie.

www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1204213983825&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

[Iain Lindley]

Just watched Hazel Blears on Sky News trying to repeat the smears, only to protest to Adam Boulton that "I'm not a smear politician". I wanted to throw something at the television.

[bexie]

Best thing to do, if Boris takes any advice... is to rise above it. Look at Obama ignoring the vicious prods of billary in the states to see how he ends up looking statesmanlike and she ends up revealing just what a vicious cow she really is.

Blears is a nasty piece of work and hopefully one of those to return to the dole queue after the next election

[london conservative]

It's not only Livingstone who has said offensive and unpleasant things

As Greater London commentator and LSE expert Dr. Tony Travers, has written that "There is no way to dress up expressions such as "piccaninnies" and "watermelon smiles" to take them within a million miles of acceptable."