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- [00:01]
A
Hi, I'm Justin Guest, a doctoral student here at the LSE and welcome to the Hot Seat. With us today to discuss the London mayoral election is professor of Political Science and Public Policy Patrick Dunleavy. As you may or may not already know, last week Conservative Boris Johnson defeated two term Labour Mayor of London Ken Livingstone. And we're going to talk about and analyze the results and what this means for London and the rest of the UK political scene. Welcome and let's get started. Professor Dunleavy, now that the results are in, how did Boris defeat the legendary Mr. Livingstone? Many say that Labour is to blame in their poor performance nationally. But is it that simple?
- [00:38]
B
It is really that simple. You know, in British local government elections, national government performance is very important. And what Ken Livingstone did actually was perform incredibly well at 20 points above the national Labour vote. But that wasn't enough to save him. And Boris was a great celebrity candidate with instant name recognition.
- [01:01]
A
Well, in terms of other types of performances, you designed the electoral system that actually selects the mayor and the assembly for London. How did the system perform this time around?
- [01:12]
B
I think the result was a great result for the system because it was designed to work with two very clear candidates, Conservative and Labor usually. And both those parties had very popular, very high name recognition candidates. So you know, you have a first preference and a second preference. But if you're going to use that second preference, you have to know who the top two candidates are going to be. You have to guess who the top two candidates are going to be. And that was very easy to do this time. So turnout went up very radically from 37% to 45%, which is a great result in a, you know, generally declining turnout situation in Britain.
- [01:53]
A
Well, speaking of second preferences, for better or worse, Ken no doubt made a visible mark on London over the years and its culture, you know, embracing its diversity, attracting global attention for the Olympics and the London market, while appealing to, and some people would say pandering to the disenfranchised, micromanaging transportation, using very slick publicity campaigns and centralizing power here in London. What will be the earliest identifiable marks of the Boris Johnson administration here in London?
- [02:23]
B
I think if he just doesn't mess anything up by the end of year one, that will be a very good result for Boris. I think the problem is that Ken is actually a great politician. I mean, you know, a politician, you can actually change something that really impacts on your daily life is a very rare thing. And Ken has done that many, many times since being London there. He's had an outstanding record, it's going to be a really hard act to follow. And particularly Ken has had that knack, which good American city mayors have, of creating this sort of populist coalition where you have voter support, where you're talking to ethnic minorities and lots of different urban interest groups, but you're also keeping urban development going and keeping the transport system running and facing down the unions. That's a huge, huge portfolio of things to do. It'll be really interesting to see if Boris can just hold it together. Nobody expects him to do much more than that, I guess.
- [03:25]
A
Well, which of any of Boris's campaign promises do you think has the best chance of actually coming to fruition here? And what obstacles do you see lying in his way?
- [03:35]
B
I think getting rid of bendy buses was a great, great slogan. These great, long, sinuous buses that, you know, clog up the streets and take ages to turn around corners and everything. They will probably go quite quickly, but what will replace them? Who knows? If anything, I don't think anything else that Boris has promised has got the least chance of making any difference to any, anyone, except that, you know, the congestion charge would have enlarged and probably it now won't. There'll be a vote and it won't enlarge and that bit of London will stay gridlocked, which, if you like, that kind of thing, is a result, I guess.
- [04:09]
A
Well, the way we're talking about him, one wonders if Boris Johnson is a liability to his party or a beacon of this shift in British public opinion. How close do you perceive Boris Johnson's City hall office being with the National Conservative Party?
- [04:24]
B
I think Boris is a great asset for the Conservative Party. Without him, they perhaps would not have won against Ken Livingstone. You know, they had a big, strong national showing. Boris didn't do hugely better than the national showing, the national vote score for the Tories. But he's a likable guy. As long as he doesn't mess anything up, I think he will continue to be an asset. Some people say that the Conservative Party will have a very close grip on City Hall. I don't think that's possible to do. David Cameron has got more than enough things to be doing without trying to run London as well. Boris will be on his own, for better or worse, with possibly a very good team.
- [05:10]
A
And on the other side of the spectrum, is it clear how Labour must go about its comeback here? And if so, what exactly stands in their way?
- [05:20]
B
People are, you know, in Britain, people write political epitaphs every six months, then they, you know, six Months later say, oh no, he's on course for victory. It's all a great result. So, you know, Labour needs to come back from its depth of local government elections. It got 24% nationally, ran third. That's a very bad result. It is not perhaps as bad a result as people are writing it up because, you know, both the two main parties have been declining in support and that means that when you say it's the worst result since 1918, of course it's the worst result since 1918 because it's, you know, a lot lower. Two party vote, people voting for Liberal Democrats, Greens, BNP, all kinds of other parties now. And the journalists are just very bad at recognizing that. So Labour needs to get back from where it is 30, 24% to around about what it got last time, 35%. That means, you know, 5 or 6% shift. And they're beginning to make that change. I myself believe very oddly and idiosyncratically that we could have a general election by June 2009. Most other people are assuming that, that Labour will hang on till April or May 2010. And I think that's because they think it will take that long for the economy to recover. And it is the economy, stupid. You know, if people are really hurting, prices are going up, they're gloomy about prospects, they punish the government in power and that's what they should do. So Labor's got to get the economy looking better, at least in prospect. The other thing it's got to do is just stop doing completely pointlessly unpopular things. Like, you know, the 42 day limit for terrorism is a liability. Getting rid of the 10p tax is a liability. Not reforming the House of Lords, continuing to obstruct, you know, democratic reforms and just stopping. Jordan Brown's been incredibly hostile to, you know, sort of various left wing interests. He says we need lots of nuclear power plants, he hasn't pulled the troops out of Basra. We've got lots of people being killed in Afghanistan now. You know, he could do a few left wing things to get Labour voters one round and he could do a few genuinely popular things to get ordinary voters one round. And what happens with governments that stay in power for people 10 or 11 years is they believe they're God's gift to governing and they've got to govern. You know, in a century's perspective, you know, if you want to be elected, be popular, stop doing unpopular things.
- [08:02]
A
Well, there it is, that simple. Plus the laundry list that follows.
- [08:06]
B
Yeah, well, I mean, the other thing is perhaps Gordon Brown has got to look different as a Prime minister. That's a more difficult thing to do. But I think as long as the government stopped doing unpopular things and started trying to build, actively build support, it wouldn't have a difficult job. The Labour Party actually performed quite well as a machine in this election and there was a surprising flowback of people who were campaigning for it. So I don't think it's all gloom, but at the moment it's the Conservatives who are on course to look very good.
- [08:45]
A
All right, Professor Dunleavy, you are off the Hot Seat. Thank you very much for participating. There's everything you could possibly want to know about the mayoral election and Boris Johnson in place in City Hall. For more from Professor Dunleavy, please consult his new book. It's called Digital Era Governance and you can find it at lots of academic bookshops. And until next time, please join us on the Hot Seat. I'm Justin Guest. Thanks for being with us.