ConservativeHome's London Mayor blog

London's top mover and shaker is... David Cameron

According to TimeOut.  Mr C will be delighted that he has ousted that ageing lefty - Ken Livingstone from the top spot.

Here are some key extracts from DC's interview with TimeOut:

• "When Cameron speaks, people listen. And on many issues – crime, the environment, health, education – he now sets the agenda in London. So much so he has knocked Ken Livingstone from the top of the annual Time Out Movers & Shakers list, and ‘beating Ken Livingstone’, he admits as we walk to the car, ‘has been a bit of a problem up to now’. An understatement given his party’s disastrous failure to find a suitable candidate to stand in the next mayoral election."
• "Cameron won’t name any closet Tories he might favour because he thinks it would harm their chances, admitting he told one prospective candidate he wouldn’t publicly back him because ‘there’s only one thing worse than being on the A-list and that’s being seen as a favoured candidate of mine’."
• "Aware of the credibility challenge his background presents, Cameron goes out of his way to connect himself with ordinary people’s concerns – like transport – though he can sound like Prince Charles . ‘The tube is incredibly difficult,’ he says, ‘because it is carved up. The Hammersmith & City Line, that’s my local one, not hugely reliable, you know. If you’re going east-west, it can be good.’ Which is, I suppose, a reasonable explanation of what it does."
• "I wonder about his cycling style. Aggressive? ‘I’m not a bonnet-slapper. I have occasionally done that thing that all cyclists do – not entirely stopping at every red light.’ Not entirely? ‘I might have continued slowly, but I try and obey the Highway Code.’"

Cameron: Livingstone is an ageing, far left politician

Tory leader David Cameron has launched a strong attack on Ken Livingstone during a speech to the Ethnic Media Conference.  According to the BBC Mr Cameron described London's Mayor as an "ageing far left politician".  He said that Ken Livingstone held "a narrative about race that sees people from ethnic minorities as potential agents of revolutionary change."  Instead, the Conservative leader continued, they should be seen as "full and equal citizens who would rather build a better life for themselves and their families than man the barricades at the behest of middle class white fantasists".

Mr Cameron's intervention follows Mr Livingstone's long-running war or words with Trevor Phillips of the Commission for Racial Equality.  The Mayor had accused Phillips of becoming so right wing that he could “join the BNP".  This childish and nasty insult followed Mr Phillips' questioning of the idea of multiculturalism but is really rooted in the fact that Phillips backed Frank Dobson rather than Ken Livingstone in the race to be Labour's Mayoral candidate.

Mr Livingstone's meanness, the mounting bill for the Olympics, London's crime wave and increasing congestion should all make 'Red Ken' beatable at the next election but the Tories are still struggling to find a candidate.

Mr Cameron also used his speech to promise monitoring of the progress of Black and Asian council and parliamentary candidates within the Conservative Party:

"I know that monitoring makes some uneasy, but if we fail to find how well we as a body are doing, we have no way of remedying the situation."

The Conservative Party also intends to offer twenty internships for young Asian and black people to work at CCHQ and in parliament:

"The fact is that it's not enough to open the door to ethnic minorities. If people look in and a see an all-white room they are less likely to hang around.  An unlocked door is not the same as a genuine invitation to come in."