London

What we have long expected has now been confirmed: Ken Livingstone will be Labour’s candidate against Boris in 2012. From the moment he lost, Livingstone has been working out how to beat Boris in 2012. He is consumed by a desire to be London’s mayor when the Olympics open in 2012. Boris won the mayoralty in almost the best conditions possible for a Conservative candidate — the Tories in opposition, an unpopular Labour government and an economy in mess. He’ll be running for re-election in almost the worst — a Conservative led government making deep spending cuts.   But if any Conservative can win in these circumstances, it is Boris.

Boris’s decision to announce today that he is to run again for Mayor of London is intriguing. Many in government circles expected Boris to wait until London’s settlement in the CSR had been finalised before announcing, his candidacy was the best card he had in the negotiation. So his declaration has sparked speculation that Boris and George Osborne have come to a deal. If Boris wins, and he starts as favourite, then what he does in his second term will be fascinating and the best guide to his future plans. If we see Boris becoming an increasingly national figure and championing causes dear to the right—free enterprise, low taxes and

Few writers can make a silly season story read like official history, so it’s worth drifting behind the Times’ paywall to read Rachel Sylvester on Boris and Dave’s mutual emnity. It is no secret that BoJo and DC are united in rivalry, but Sylvester adds a second dimension with insider quotations – a mix of arch witticisms and savage partisanship. Here are several of many from today’s column: ‘Most people at Westminster assume that Boris — compared by one of his editors to Marilyn Monroe, “another egomaniacal blonde” — still harbours ambitions to lead his party. As a boy he used to declare that when he grew up he wanted to be “world king”, so

The most bizarre story of the day is Michael Crick’s post saying that in Number 10 there’s discussion of Vince Cable running as a Coalition candidate for Mayor of London. Now, I’d be totally shocked if this was to happen and have made some calls it still strikes me as thoroughly unlikely. The three main reasons for this are that Boris Johnson wants to run for re-election, the coalition would be taking a massive risk to test its electoral popularity in this way (imagine if Labour won) and taking Cable out of the Cabinet would unbalance the coalition. On the London mayor front, we’ll know who the Labour candidate is

Ken Livingstone’s long reign as a Labour London Mayor was predicated on his supposed insurgency against New Labour’s orthodoxy. Well, he remains intent on dissociating himself from his party. For instance today, he has endorsed Eric Pickles’ abolition of the Audit Commission. ‘This is one Tory cut I support,’ he said. This contradicts John Denham’s position. Perhaps Livingstone recognises that Labour cannot give the public sector unqualified support; there are fat cats protecting vested interests in Whitehall, just as there are in the City. Livingstone scents capital in abolishing a public body that wants to pay its chairman £260,000 when ordinary voters are struggling with the bills and the Evening Standard

There has been some speculation, most of it idle, that Boris Johnson will not stand for re-election as London Mayor in 2012. Speaking to the Today programme about the necessity of protecting the Olympics budget, Boris commented on his putative re-election campaign. He said: ‘If things are still going well I would be totally crackers not to have another go at it then. But I’m going to be making an announcement later on.’ Many would describe his tenure so far as a comedy of inertia. I don’t: Johnson battled hard to shield the City from puerile political indignation at the height of the financial crisis. It showed a seriousness and

As Allister Heath notes in City AM this morning, Mervyn King has had a good war. Well, not so much a good war as a profitable peace. King contributed to the domestic crisis by sustaining very low interest rates whilst ignoring asset prices. Brown may have forced the Governor’s hand, but King was groggily supine until a sovereign debt crisis threatened. George Osborne is dismantling Gordon Brown’s regulatory imperium. King is the major beneficiary as the FSA is subsumed by the Bank of England. How will exercise that power? Obviously, time will tell; but monetary tightening will moderate excess (and spruce up banks’ balance sheets) in the short-term. Heath reports:

By far the most surprising twist in the sorry tale of the demise of David Laws, is that it has yet to unleash another round of banker bashing. There is plenty potential for it. Why, it might be asked, would such a confident and accomplished MP refuse to admit to being gay? Why in this day and age, when so many have paved the way before him, couldn’t he have just come out? The answer may well lie in his career background. Laws came from one of the very hardest places for gay man to be open about their sexuality: the City of London. As I know from my own