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It was the doughnuts wot dun it.
The papers spoke during the week of the doughnut pattern of canvassing and voting in the London mayoral elections.
Ken Livingstone concentrating on the inner London boroughs (Tower Hamlets, Brixton) where there are high concentrations of ethnic minorities and he is popular. Boris Johnson taking the trouble to visit suburban constituencies where, as one journalist put it, “They don’t always think of themselves as Londoners”. And that is just the attitude that led to Ken’s defeat.
Because many of those who live in the outer constituencies used to live in the inner boroughs. And do still consider themselves Londoners. But they don’t like what they see these days in their ancestral homelands. And this isn’t just the “white flight” the Livingstone’s sneer at because I know numerous families whose grandparents came from the West Indies or Nairobi who are very glad to get into suburbia and out of Hackney or Haringey. Their concerns are crime, the schools under pressure with so many children speaking English as a second (or third) language, the hospitals ditto, fire engines attacked by gangs of youths as they try to save lives. Not that this inner city maelstrom is confined to London of course.
Taxed to the hilt, even to the use of their cars should they wish to visit the old home. Threatened with extension of the congestion charge even to move about their present home.
Boris Johnson came to the outer London boroughs and talked to Londoners. Ken couldn’t be arsed. He has never been bothered.
And now suburbia has spoken. And he is out.
