Boris johnson

Ni hao. In recent days, Boris, Ken and Brian have all leapt headlong onto Weibo, China’s highly popular version of Twitter. It’s an obvious effort to win the votes of Chinese-speakers living in London. Boris was the first — which, I suppose, says all you want to know about his sense of initiative, brio, élan, and whatever the Chinese word is for ‘mojo’. Ken and Brian both jumped in about two weeks later, around April 21.   Inevitably, because the vast majority of Weibo users live in China, our three London mandarins have ended up attracting followers based in the Middle Kingdom. A look at the mayoral candidates’ individual Weibo

As promised, here’s our exclusive podcast interview with Boris Johnson. He kindly took some time away from running around Marylebone to answer a few questions from CoffeeHousers on collapsing Tube tunnels, boats on the Thames, religion in London, Tube unions, future career plans and his continued love of the Spectator. We hope you enjoy the results. The View from 22 — Boris on the stump. Length 5:55 Download audio file (MP3) Subscribe with iTunesSubscribe with RSS Listen now: Photograph © Alan Davidson/The Picture LIbrary Ltd

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has kindly agreed to take some questions from CoffeeHousers tomorrow. Sebastian Payne, presenter of our new podcast The View from 22, will pick the best questions, put them to the Mayor and post the audio of his responses on the website later. So, what would you like to put to Boris?

It looks as though the London Mayoral election isn’t the foregone conclusion some thought it was. A new YouGov poll for the Evening Standard has the gap between Boris and Ken down to just two points — well within the margin of error. That contrasts with the eight-point lead that Boris had opened up last month: One interesting finding is that, despite all the controversy over his tax affairs, Labour supporters are not turning their backs on Ken. In fact, they seem to be rallying around him. Of those Labour general election voters who express a preference between Ken and Boris, Ken now has the support of 89 per cent.

With anti-politics on the rise, there’s one candidate in the May elections who is out to capitalise on the mood. Siobhan Benita, the independent running for London Mayor, has been making increasingly remarkable waves in the run up to 3rd May. She is a technocrat, priding herself on the absence of political views, but adds colour to the race — according to our wine correspondent, Simon Hoggart — whose other employer, the Guardian, has a soft spot for her: ‘Finally she arrived and, while I won’t say that the media swooned, she certainly had an impact. Tall, glossy-haired, elegant in a pencil dress with scarlet jacket, and a diamond wedding

The fight for London Mayor election has well and truly descended into a clash of personalities. Policies have all but disappeared while candidates trade attacks in the press. The Guardian, duly unimpressed, has written a scathing leader attacking both sides for this strategy: ‘The early days of the London campaign have fallen well short of what the voters are entitled to expect. Almost everything has been focused on the egos, lifestyles and personalities of the two main candidates, Boris Johnson of the Conservatives and Ken Livingstone for Labour. Mr Johnson, arguably a better mayor than some feared but evasive and woolly on the detail as ever, has run a deliberately

George Osborne indicating that he is open to him and other ministers having to publish their tax returns is testament to two things. First, the Tory leadership, who know how crucial a Boris victory in London is to the Cameron project regaining momentum, is keen to keep the pressure on Ken Livingstone over his tax affairs. They have no desire to let a row over whether they’ll publish theirs distract attention from the problems of Labour’s mayoral candidate. As Osborne himself stresses in the Telegraph interview, “The reason we are talking about this now is that this is a smokescreen for Ken Livingstone’s tax affairs. Let’s not take the focus

So, Ken has now released his tax details. He hasn’t gone as far as Lib Dem candidate Brian Paddick, who’s published his full tax returns for the past three years. And there are also questions about what income Ken might not have included in his release. It’s also not clear whether or not he’s including National Insurance contributions, as the other two candidates are. But, based just on the figures each candidate has declared, here are the effective tax rates they’ve been paying: UPDATE: It seems Ken’s campaign is trying to use our chart as proof that he isn’t avoiding tax. But our figures for Ken are simply the amount

The most striking thing about tonight’s mayoral hustings on Newsnight was how often Brian Paddick attacked Ken Livingstone. Paddick, who turned in the most assured performance of all the candidates, accused Livingstone of being like a ‘bad 1970s comedian who plays to whatever audience he’s talking to.’ He also, interestingly, sided with Boris Johnson when the discussion turned to the 50p tax rate and then the candidate’s own tax affairs. It is tempting to see Paddick’s performance tonight as testament to how keen the Liberal Democrat top brass are to see Livingstone defeated in London. They know that if Labour fails to win in London, the pressure on Ed Miliband

The tensions that have been bubbling away in the London mayoral contest spilt out into the open today with Boris Johnson accusing Ken Livingstone of lying about both of their tax affairs. On the facts of the matter, it looks pretty clear that Boris is right: he doesn’t use a company to reduce his tax liability. There are, though, those claiming that accusing Livingstone of being an ‘f***ing liar’ will hurt Boris. But I doubt this; it is hard to imagine Boris as an angry or mean-spirited person. What this exchange does do, though, is raise the stakes for their televised hustings tomorrow night. I expect that Livingstone will try and

A dark, damp and freezing cellar beneath Waterloo station isn’t an obvious choice for launching a political campaign — but that’s where Team Ken officially kicked off their Mayoral bid last night. Various prominent lefties were brought into the Old Vic Tunnels to warm up for the man himself. Eddie Izzard was also present to fill in the gaps and keep everyone engaged until the bar opened. Most of the policies discussed have already been made public, but there were a few new, colourful additions. Ken pointed out that Transport for London purchases energy at half the normal price, so why don’t they buy more and sell it back to ordinary

The most important political changes are those that will not be reversed. I think that both directly elected mayors and police commissioners fit this mould. I can’t imagine voters choosing to cede the ability to hold power to account that these positions will give them. Tellingly, more people in London now favour independence for the capital than want to scrap the office of mayor. Police commissioners and mayors also provide the Conservatives with a massive opportunity to rebuild the party in urban Britain, as I argue in my column this week. The Conservatives have little chance of gaining overall control of the council in, say, Leeds. But they could win a mayoral

What does No.10 make of Boris’s campaign so far? Not much, judging by Alice Thomson’s column (£) in the Times today: ‘Downing Street is worried. When the mayor came in with his Australian election strategist Lynton Crosby last week, they thought their plans were “underwhelming” and lacked a simple ‘retail offer’ for voters.’ This certainly fits in with what I’ve noted before: that Team Boris is being significantly quieter than Team Ken. Indeed, further research suggests that the current Mayor is trailing far behind his challenger in the all-vital Evening Standard campaign coverage. I’ve sifted through their archives for the past six months, and it turns out that for every Boris initiative being mentioned