Mayoral hustings

Few surprises to report from the final public showdown between the three London Mayoral candidates at Cadogan Hall last night.

The audience's questions ran along largely predictable lines: crime, hospital closures, transport, and affordable housing, allowing the candidates to quote healthy chunks from their manifestos and knock eachother's record on said issue. Accustomed as they are by now to sparring with one another, none of the candidates were short on quips (even the chronically wooden Paddick).

But the whole event was somewhat hamstrung by the demands of live broadcasting (and, it seemed, a TV crew who hadn't got to grips with the basics of sound engineering). And every fifteen minutes the discussion was interrupted by an ad-break, killing the flow of the argument. While the audience fidgeted and Adam Boulton's orange makeup was reapplied, the candidates cleared their throats and shuffled their papers, before firing up again the moment the cameras were turned on.

That said, the most illuminating moments also happened off-camera. As a warmup exercise, each were asked a few of non-mayoral questions, including which of the US presidential candidates they supported. Livingstone and Paddick both came our for Obama, while Boris who had previously supported Hillary, executed a (knowingly) self-serving volte-face, declaring he now supported Obama too, as the Illinois Senator (like Boris, of course) was the true candidate of "change" and "fresh leadership".

Disappointingly, however, the best question of the night was never answered. One of the more astute members of the audience asked Boris, (born in New York, raised in Eton, MP in Oxfordfordshire) how "passionate" he was about London. Did he really care about London so much that, if he lost the election, he would accept a post as one of Livingstone's advisors? The Mayor had earlier promised that if he won, the first thing he would do would be to telephone both of his "esteemed rivals" and offer them jobs. One can imagine Paddick taking him up on this, but not, perhaps, the Honorable Member for Henley-on-Thames.