Vote Ken

Dave Hill, who's been tirelessly pounding the streets for the Guardian covering the mayoral campaign, does a good job of outlining the reasons why you should vote for Ken today, and why, despite his near-miraculous personality makeover during the course of the campaign, Boris Johnson is not suitable to be mayor of London. Hill's piece is certainly likely to prove more persuasive than this uncharacteristically patrician article by Steve Richards in the Independent today, who seems to come perilously close to suggesting that anyone plumping for Boris Johnson is not worthy of the franchise.

Still wavering? Check out our extended interview with Livingstone from last year. The charges Ken's many critics have laid against him—cronyism, arrogant disdain for his opponents, the worrying tendency to forge alliances with unsavoury characters as some kind of tokenistic anti-imperialist gesture—are justified, and have done a good job of diverting closer attention to the mayor's record this year than he has experienced since taking office in 2000. Yet as our interview makes clear, Ken lives and breathes London; he has a rock-solid grip on policy detail, a vision for the city that is in tune with its nature as one of the most cosmopolitan cities of the world, and most refreshingly, a practical rather than ideological approach to the roles and responsibilities of executive office.