Brian Paddick

Londoners face a real dilemma on Thursday. Ken Livingstone has proved he is not fit to be our Mayor any longer, Boris Johnson has never done anything to prove that he is fit to be Mayor, and Brian Paddick does not stand a chance - or does he? You see, these polls we have been seeing involve little more than a click of the computer mouse or answering a telephone call. When it comes to going to a polling station and facing the reality of a ballot paper with “Mayor of London” at the top, it is going to be a different story.

I say that because I am in the same position as other ordinary Londoners; I know exactly how you feel. The dilemma is reflected in the high number of undecided voters in yesterday’s YouGov poll - 13 per cent of the total. This is a race where political cynicism and party loyalty are unnecessarily limiting people’s choices.

For instance, a smartly dressed black woman stopped me in Westminster the other day. “I want to vote for you but I’m a Conservative, through and through,” she explained. Not “Boris has the best policies” but “I’m a Conservative”.

But what kind of Conservative is Boris? When he explained that he wanted to give an amnesty to illegal immigrants in London, David Cameron, the Conservative leader, described Boris as “his own man”, code for “I do not agree with him”. Yet in other ways Boris seems to hail from another era, making racially and religiously insensitive remarks worthy of a Tory party long since left behind. It is not that Boris Johnson is to the Left or the Right of the new Conservative Party - he is all over the place.

Click here to read the full article on from the Evening Standard.