Campaign
Much of the campaign period was focused on the tax affairs of the main two candidates, Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone. The Livingstone campaign has been dogged by scandal over his tax affairs. Livingstone was accused of hypocrisy, having berated those who avoid tax while organising his own affairs in a manner that reduces his tax liabilities. It is claimed that he had his accountant arrange for his earnings from media work to be channeled into a private company to avoid the 50p top tax rate. Personal tensions between Livingstone and Johnson ran high, with Johnson cornering Livingstone in a lift and screaming, "You’re a fucking liar, you’re a fucking liar, you’re a fucking liar," after a radio interview in which Livingstone accused him of using similar arrangements.
Polling showed that Livingstone was less popular than the Labour Party, while Johnson was more popular than the Conservatives. In March, a Yougov poll indicated that almost 1 in 3 Labour voters would not be voting for Livingstone (31%). One website dedicated to Labour politics has highlighted this as a problem for his campaign saying:
Unless Labour divert valuable campaign time and resources to addressing Ken Livingstone’s negatives, then the doubts which are driving away ever more Labour supporters will simply not be addressed.
Some in the Labour Party were critical of Livingstone off the record, with one MP speaking anonymously suggesting that the internal contest to pick a mayoral candidate had been run far too early, thus no alternate candidates had experienced electoral teams ready. Labour peer Lord Sugar urged people not to vote for Livingstone, while two other Labour peers, Lord Desai and Lord Winston, have also been critical of Livingstone.
Livingstone's core proposal was for a significant cut in public transport fares, although his ability to fund this was questioned.
Read more about this topic: London Mayoral Election, 2012
Famous quotes containing the word campaign:
“The war on privilege will never end. Its next great campaign will be against the privileges of the underprivileged.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.”
—Mario Cuomo (b. 1932)
“Dianne’s not one of the boys, but she’s not one of the girls, either.”
—Marcia Smolens, U.S. political campaign aide. As quoted in Dianne Feinstein, ch. 15, by Jerry Roberts (1994)