This article is a response to an article from Steve Hart based on his pamphlet ‘Who can beat Boris?’
Beware those bearing false statistical comparisons and wishful thinking. Steve Hart’s argument that Ken Livingstone is more popular than Labour is based on a flawed set of assumptions that, don’t stand up to scrutiny.
Steve claims that in 2008 Ken Livingstone out performed London’s MPs in the 2010 general election; and in so doing, he makes a totally false comparison. The mayoral election in 2008 was a London-wide election that was effectively a two-horse race – and voters understood it this way. The Liberal Democrats (and smaller parties) weren’t competitive and many voters simply voted with a major party without going through the charade of transferring their vote.
The general election in London was, in contrast, effectively more than 70 local races. Many of which the Liberal Democrats were competitive in – either where they already held MPs, in say Steve and my own constituency of Hornsey & Wood Green or Richmond or where they were hopeful of taking MPs: Islington South or Hampstead & Kilburn. This meant their vote was motivated to stick with them, rather than to stop their least favorite as was the case in the 2008 mayoral election.
with Conservatives. Prescott is in the House of Lords, but following Frank Field and John Hutton’s acceptance of advisory positions to the current incumbents comes the completion of the triumvirate of ex-Labour ministers working in the current administration, with the addition of former cabinet minister Alan Milburn as social mobility tsar. 
America – where the Democrats have a near-super majority (for the moment at least) and the Republicans are still forcing Obama to water down his agenda, our system is unbelievably brutal.
poorest members of our society. This goal is not one that is shared by the members of the current cabinet, as shown by the scrapping of the future jobs fund.
