As expected, Zac Goldsmith has won the Conservative nomination for next year’s Mayor of London race with a sweeping 71 per cent of the vote – but on a distressingly small turnout. Anyone in London could vote by paying £1, so there had been hopes of a high turnout – figures of 60,000 were mentioned. But a pitiful 9,227 turned out to vote, from a city of ten million. Given the excitement caused by Labour’s leadership race, this is hugely disappointing for the Tories — and bodes ill for the race now in prospect.
If the turnout was bad for Zac, it was worse for everyone else. Syed Kamall, an MEP for London, was second with 16 per cent. Stephen Greenhalgh, the irascible deputy mayor, came third on 9 per cent and the Tories’ GLA leader Andrew Boff (who didn’t even bother to put up a campaign website) came fourth with four per cent. So what now for Zac? His acceptance speech to London Tories this morning was lethargic, almost complacent. This whole primary has not put him through his paces; it has not been a preparation for the mayoral race.
Goldsmith has been the bookies’ favourite to be the Tory candidate throughout this contest and his upcoming battle with Labour’s Sadiq Khan will be fascinating. The champagne corks were popping in CCHQ when he beat Tessa Jowell. While the MP for Tooting has the might of the trade unions on his side, Goldsmith has the Tories’ election winning machine — with Lynton Crosby’s company (but not the Wizard of Oz himself) might be signed up for the 2016 race. But the problem is the machine. Labour has the unions; Zac has the ageing and dwindling Tory membership in London.
In response to Goldsmith’s victory, the incumbent Mayor of London Boris Johnson said:
‘I’m delighted for Zac – he’s principled, hard-working, and dedicated, he’s fizzing with ideas, and he’s passionate about London and its people. Zac Goldsmith is that fighter. He’s fearless. He will make a brilliant Mayor.’
Boris’s ebullient language masks a problem that Goldsmith and his team will now have to tackle: his shyness. At hustings, he has come across at hustings as an introvert — in stark contrast to Boris, who is one of British politics’ great showmen. Goldsmith is not not used to fundraising — his mother donated £50,000 to his campaign — and there is a big danger for the Tories that he is too posh to push and his shyness might be interpreted as aloofness.
Some London media outlets were frustrated and amazed they were unable to get ahold of Goldsmith and he appeared not to show much interest in speaking directly to his target voters. Local newspaper reporters in particular will need plenty of time from Team Goldsmith over the next few months.
But this isn’t to say Zac is a bad choice: he has a natural charm and he was the only candidate to have some of the X factor needed for a Tory to win in a Labour city. His anti-Heathrow environmentalist politics have the potential to appeal beyond the Tories natural base and shore up second preferences from Greens and Liberal Democrats. But Zac needs to realise that the slog begins now and he needs to work and campaign his guts out over the next eight months if he wants the Tories to hold onto capital. If he does, the prize will be huge: next May is the first major electoral test for Jeremy Corbyn and Goldsmith has potential to strike the first big blow against Corbyn and potentially kill off his leadership.
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