London mayor runners are often publicity seekers and oddballs whose careers ended in disgrace - Livingston and Johnson prove that
Sky News's Adam Boulton analyses the history of the London mayoral race and how the current candidates stack up.
Friday 30 June 2023 15:53, UK
The Mayor of London has the biggest personal mandate in British politics.
Well over a million people will vote for the winner by name. This election is a quasi-presidential contest, not a parliamentary election by party and constituency.
Securing the nomination from either Labour or Conservatives is usually, though not always, the first step towards County Hall.
The high personal profile of the office means that it attracts candidates with big personalities and egos.
Surprisingly few of them have been well-known national figures from the political mainstream.
Publicity seekers and oddballs
More often the wannabes have been publicity seekers and oddballs whose careers ended in opprobrium - as happened eventually even to two successful two-term mayors - Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson.
On 2 May next year, Londoners will go to the polls to elect a mayor, for the seventh time.
The scramble for nominations is already underway. The contest is proving as colourful as those which have gone before.
The Tory front-runner Daniel Korski is the latest faller in the wacky race for London.
He pulled out this week after what he called "this false and untrue allegation" by Daisy Goodwin, a well-known author and TV producer, that he groped her breast during a meeting in Downing Street a decade ago, while he was an adviser to David Cameron.
Tony Blair created the post of elected London Mayor in 2000 as part of New Labour's UK-wide push for devolution but quickly came to regret it after a vicious fight for his party's nomination.
So far three men have held the job, each for two terms: the independent, then Labour, Livingstone, Conservative Johnson and the incumbent Sadiq Khan, who is standing again in 2024.
Mr Khan, a former Labour MP and minister from a Muslim background, has been the exception amongst mayoral wannabes, having avoided personal scandals.
His predecessors and those who challenged them have not been so lucky.
The inaugural contest in 2000 got off to a messy start for both main parties.
Prison, prostitutes, and political infighting
Former MP and bestselling author Jeffrey Archer secured the Conservative nomination, backed by Margaret Thatcher and John Major. Mr Major gave Archer a peerage in 1992.
He resurrected his political career after winning a libel case against The Daily Star which alleged that he had paid off a prostitute called Monica Coghlan.
In an echo of the way skeletons emerged from the closet once Mr Korski was in the race, a former friend informed The News of the World that Mr Archer had lied during the trial.
He withdrew immediately and William Hague, then Tory leader, declared "this is the end of politics for Jeffrey Archer".
Mr Archer was subsequently convicted and imprisoned for perjury.
As his replacement the Conservatives opted for Stephen Norris, an MP and junior minister.
With a background in the motor trade, Mr Norris actually came from Liverpool and had known the outspoken minister Edwina Currie at secondary school.
The tabloids had fun with Mr Norris's lively private life but, after losing in 2000, he was chosen again to fight for London in 2004, when he was defeated for a second time by Ken Livingstone.
The left-wing newt fancier Ken Livingstone was not the official Labour candidate in 2000, in spite of his high profile as head of the old Greater London Council in the 1980s.
Mr Blair and his advisers, including Margaret McDonagh who died this week, considered that Mr Livingstone had damaged Labour's reputation and blocked him.
This left Labour scrabbling around for a candidate in an election that they had created.
Prominent female politicians including Mo Mowlam and Oona King turned down the invitation.
Eventually Sir Nick Raynsford stood.
On Sky News he denied it when I asked him: "Will you pull out in favour of Frank Dobson if he stands?"
A week later Mr Dobson reluctantly let his name go forward.
He was health secretary and a Yorkshireman representing Holborn and St Pancras in London, which is now Keir Starmer's constituency.
Sir Nick was his campaign manager and he opened Mr Dobson's launch at the party conference with the words: "Everybody always knew I would stand down in favour of Frank."
Mr Dobson got the Labour nomination, beating the Oscar-winning actress Glenda Jackson, who was now a neighbouring Labour MP in London.
Mr Livingstone fought on as an independent and beat both Mr Norris and Mr Dobson.
He was readmitted to the Labour Party and stood as a candidate twice more, beating Mr Norris again in 2004 but losing to Boris Johnson in 2008. Johnson then presented himself as pro-Europe, pro-business and pro-London.
In one of his trademark epic miscalculations, David Cameron encouraged Mr Johnson to be a candidate to get his old Eton schoolmate and rival out of the way.
Mr Johnson won twice against the grain in what is often called a "Labour city".
The London mayoralty became his springboard to the Tory leadership and ultimately 10 Downing Street.
Mr Johnson was married to the barrister Marina Wheeler during his time as mayor, when he also fathered a daughter with Helen Macintyre, an art dealer, and conducted an affair with Jennifer Arcuri, an American businesswoman.
Until the government changed the rules in 2022, the London Mayoral and Assembly elections used proportional voting systems.
This has given smaller parties a significant foothold in the Assembly but they have not flourished in the battle for mayor.
In the early contests, the Liberal Democrats selected prominent candidates: Susan Kramer, a city business figure, Simon Hughes the veteran MP, and Brian Paddick, a senior Metropolitan policeman.
They made little impression. In the last three contests - 2012, 2016 and 2021 - the Green Party candidate has beaten the Liberal Democrat for third place.
Four prominent London MPs competed for the Labour nomination in 2016.
In the end, Sadiq Khan beat Tessa Jowell, with Diane Abbott and David Lammy trailing behind them.
With the divisive Brexit referendum due, the Tories struggled to find a candidate, eventually alighting on billionaire's son Zac Goldsmith.
Some accused Mr Goldsmith's campaign of racist dog whistling.
He lost in Britain's most diverse city.
Four years later former minister Rory Stewart withdrew when the election was delayed until 2021 because of COVID.
The Conservatives chose Shaun Bailey, a black former aide of Mr Johnson to take on Sadiq Khan. They lost again.
In his resignation honours, Mr Johnson made Mr Bailey a lord, despite his attendance at a rule-breaking party during the COVID lockdown.
This year the Tory list of potential candidates was thinner than ever, even before Mr Korski pulled out.
Many wonder why Paul Scully MP, the current minister for London, did not make the shortlist.
Two obscure people are left fighting it out for the Tory nomination.
Susan Hall, a local council leader, was given short shrift in the London Evening Standard: "Her values will not necessarily chime with the majority of Londoners, given her support for Donald Trump and her comparison of anti-Brexit protesters with those who stormed the US capitol. She has also suggested the black community has 'problems with crime'."
The other candidate is Moz Hussain, a lawyer who has never stood for elected office before. Some of his campaign staff are implicated in lockdown-busting parties.
The Conservative leadership in Westminster already seem to have written off giving Sadiq Khan a serious fight for re-election.
Perhaps they are preoccupied with the general election also due next year.
Perhaps, after Boris Johnson's ascent, they are unenthusiastic about setting up a rival power centre.
Directly elected mayors in other cities have established themselves as influential independent voices - including Conservative Andy Street in the West Midlands, Labour's Steve Rotheram in Liverpool, and Andy Burnham in Greater Manchester.
Mayors are a sore point for Keir Starmer, just as they were for Mr Blair.
His Labour party blocked Jamie Driscoll, Mayor of North Tyne, nicknamed "the last Corbynite", from the candidates' list for the new Metro Mayor of the North East.
Things did not go well for two previous London Mayors after they left office.
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Mr Livingstone was suspended from the Labour Party for bringing it into disrepute with remarks about Hitler and Jews.
Facing expulsion as a party member, he resigned and his application to join the Green Party was rejected.
Boris Johnson was forced to resign as prime minister when a majority of his ministers refused to support him anymore.
This year he quit as an MP when the privileges committee recommended his suspension for misleading parliament.
Sadiq Khan will break records if he is elected next year for a third term.
Londoners may not care very much - turnout at the last mayoral election was 42% - less than half of those eligible to vote.
After 23 years of trying they have yet to embrace the idea.
The perennially rackety choice of candidates offered to voters is one reason for this.
The people of the nation's capital and by far the UK's biggest city deserve a mayor they respect.