Livingstone elected for second term

Labour's Ken Livingstone has won a second term as mayor of London.

 

The incumbent candidate, who won as an independent in 2000, beat off the challenge of Conservative Steve Norris, it was announced on Friday.

 

Thursday's poll saw Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes trail in third with 15 per cent of the vote, while the Green nominee Darren Johnson fell from fifth in 2000 to seventh.

 

In the first round of voting Livingstone won 685,000 votes (36 per cent) and Norris 542,000 (29 per cent) with those two going through to the second round.

 

When second preference votes were added from all the eliminated candidates the Labour man had 828,000 and the Tory 667,000.

 

That gave Livingstone the keys to City Hall until 2008 and Labour its only real success story of bad day at the polls after a series of council losses across England and Wales.

 

A big breakthrough was made by the UK independence party, whose candidate Frank Maloney, a former boxing promoter, finished fourth with 115,000.

 

Johnson suffered at the hands of UKIP and protest parties Respect and the BNP, who both overtook him.

 

Credit

 

Livingstone sought to claim credit for the Labour Party in the victory.

 

"We have been defending a four year record of progressive politics," he said.

 

"I am proud to say we have sought to redistribute wealth."

 

But he added that "we survived here because we fought clearly on the issues of public spending, traditional Labour issues".

 

"This is the message for Tony Blair," he said.

 

And he warned that "rumours of the death of the Conservative Party have been rather overplayed".

 

"Steve posed more of a threat than I would have liked," he said.

 

Norris said the win was a "personal" vote for Livingstone and not Labour.

 

"I admire Ken Livingstone," he said. "I don't necessarily agree with him a great deal.

 

"I am not entirely sure we even agree on the day, but I have to say I admire somebody, who whether you like it or not, sticks to his principles.

 

"I am sorry I lost, but if I had to lose, I am proud that I lost to Ken Livingstone.

 

"I think his achievement will be regarded as something quite personal and he should take every credit for that."

Assembly

 

In the London assembly Labour was set to lose its crucial share of one third of the vote, meaning Livingstone will have to work with rival parties in order to get his annual Budget passed.

 

Only one of the 14 directly elected seats changed hands, with the Tories taking Brent and Harrow from Labour

 

The member who lost his seat was Lord Toby Harris, who Livingstone made chairman of the Metropolitan Police Authority in his first term.

 

But in the proportional top-up vote, designed to give smaller parties fair representation, UKIP was set to make the biggest advances with Damian Hockney set to be the party's first assembly member.