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At long last the hard working people of London have woken up and delivered Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party the keys to City Hall.
The Labour Party have been taught a tough but simple lesson, never take the electorate for granted.
The Rt Hon Tony Blair modernised the Labour Party but not the thinking of the left, maybe the defeat of Livingstone in "liberal" London will do Labour a favour, just maybe they'll take the ear plugs out and pass around the cotton buds at future cabinet meetings.
In 1997 the parliamentary seat of Ilford North fell to New Labour, they had gained the support of 7,500 predominantly conservative taxi-cab drivers, you can't win this seat without the support of the taxi trade, they call the constituency green badge valley. But then Livingstone started to dictate to the taxi trade and by 2005 Linda Perman had lost her seat due to his behavior and policies This should have sent alarm bells ringing in Downing street, it didn't. The dislike of Livingstone and his advisers grew amongst our ranks but then along came Boris Johnson MP, a cheeky, intelligent, approachable chap who had the media profile to take on Livingstone. Some doubted him, even mocked but the turning point for me was after Christmas, Boris and his team hit the ground running in January. Whilst Livingstone and his team failed to get to grips with the gun and knife crime on the streets of the capital, thirty nine young men had been murdered in the last fifteen months.
Now some within the media ( including the liberal left at the BBC) will argue that Boris doesn't have a mandate to change London for the better. I would disagree and point out that Livingstone only ever polled one in ten first preference votes when he was victorious.
I always said Livingstone was a UB40 so I thank all 1.1 million of you who gave him his marching orders. I would also like to personally thank Andrew Gilligan a first class journalist, Stewart of Stanmore, but last and certainly not least John Kaponi Editor of the London Daily News, you called the turnout and the result before anybody else.
PS Politics is about to get very interesting.
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