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Ken and Boris face electoral showdown

01/05/2008

Londoners will be deciding today which of ten candidates they will be choosing as their mayor for the next four years.

Ken Livingstone is seeking a third term after a tight campaign against nearest rival Conservative challenger Boris Johnson.

Voters in the capital will be choosing whether to replace or keep Mr Livingstone in the city's top job, as well as the 25 members of the London Assembly.

Mr Johnson has maintained a slight lead in the polls and this is the first real test for the incumbent, who has been damaged by allegations of wrongdoing, since he won office in 2000.

Mr Livingstone will be hoping his Tory rival's flamboyant personality will prove his undoing as a result and has focused his last-minute election efforts on that theme.

"My case is – don't vote for a joke, vote for London," Mr Livingstone said.

"[The mayor's] job is to take the right decisions not make jokes about their latest blunder. Given the size of the mayor's budget any other approach is likely to hit Londoners very hard in their pockets."

Mr Johnson sent out an email to his supporters yesterday calling on them to back him at the polls today.

"Just imagine how you'll feel on Friday if you haven't voted and Ken Livingstone slips through for four more years of arrogance, waste, sleaze and overspending," he wrote.

"If you care about London's future, and you back my plans to make it a safer, cleaner, greener, greater city to live in, then please make sure you come out to vote."

Away from the two main contenders, Liberal Democrat candidate Brian Paddick is in danger of being pushed into fourth place by Green party candidate Sian Berry, but his significance lies in second preference voters.

In the likely event that neither Mr Johnson nor Mr Livingstone gain an outright majority, those preferring him in the first instance could end up deciding who will be the next resident of City Hall.

Commentators will also be watching the progress of the British National party (BNP), who were just 0.2 per cent off a London Assembly seat in 2004. All moderate parties have campaigned vigorously against them.