23 February 2012 10:56 AM

London mayoral elections: there's a jostle for third place and it isn't the LibDems

The race for the London elections has just got interesting with the LibDems struggling to file for third place and Paddick’s panicking.

The Mayoral and London Assembly candidates’ race was rapidly becoming a re-run of 2008 with the same old faces – Ken, Boris and Paddick. However, the polls are consistently showing that the Greens and UKIP are neck-and-neck and I predict Paddick will be shifted off the third place podium.

The LibDems are rattled. The public see them as a busted flush, their credibility is at an all-time low and at the weekend YouGov had them and UKIP jostling for third pole position, being only one per cent apart. Added to that the result of the Feltham and Heston by-election where UKIP only lost out to third place by 88 votes, they’re frightened.

As the race is the same two old faces at the top, where do the disenfranchised, disaffected and disengaged voters – and they are legion in London - place their cross?

The LibDem voters that I speak to are generally quite left-wing who fell out of love with Labour years ago and believe that their leaders have sold out to the devil are very angry and will be voting Green. They are most angry at the moment about the Health Bill, more so than they were over tuition fees and their activists are haemorrhaging at an alarming rate. Ideologically, they back the idea of heavy green taxes, buy into climate change, think motorists should be punished at the pump and would like a mansion tax and to keep the 50p top rate of tax. They tell me this is not a protest vote but a vote for a party that in their eyes has credibility and under the proportional representation system, their vote will make a difference.

Now, whilst I think Jenny Jones, the Green leader of the GLA, is quite potty in her policies and views, she and Lawrence Webb, the UKIP candidate, are resonating with voters. It is worth noting Jenny’s credentials for politics – apparently, before entering politics she was an archaeologist in the Middle East specialising in bird droppings. Oh, and she is fond of ‘wimmin’s issues’. That should endear her to Labour’s disenfranchised who can’t stand Ken.

Where else will the Labour protest vote go? The working-class voters who have been let down by Labour with mass unemployment because of uncontrolled immigration? Those whose children are condemned to sink schools because of Labour’s failed education policy and who are unable to move to better school catchment areas because either they can’t afford to do so or live in social housing?

The natural choice for them is UKIP with their policies of re-introducing grammar schools – providing real upward social mobility for their kids, a five year moratorium on immigration to get our own people back into work and the promise to build more council housing.

Not all Conservatives think Boris walks on water. They too have a protest vote as they do not like to see their Prime Minister’s hands tied behind his back by Nick Clegg. The grassroots believe Cameron has sold them down the river on the EU, immigration, green taxes and the pernicious 50p top rate of tax. Again, their natural choice would be UKIP.

The Tories have told me that they expect to lose a number of GLA seats as they cannot hope to replicate the momentum they gained in 2008 when voters wanted rid of Ken and the PR voting system meant their candidates got a high number of seats. They expect some of those seats fall to UKIP who have a very strong line-up.

The media, up until now, have been contemptuous of the electorate too, by just concentrating on Boris and Ken. They are waking up to a two-horse race foregone conclusion so what’s to write about? Well, the race that has just got interesting for the Mayoral third place and which party will take seats from Labour and Conservatives in the GLA? Let’s watch Paddick squirm and UKIP and the Greens preen.

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JANICE ATKINSON-SMALL

Janice is a director of a new, centre-right think tank, WomenOn ... which seeks to challenge the left dominated Guardianista feminist view of the world of women which does not represent ordinary women. Women On … researches the issues facing women today, and promotes ideas and policies which enable all women to reach their full potential – economically, socially, culturally and politically, but not at the expense of men.
In politics she was the director of Conservative Action for Electoral Reform (but did not support AV) and had provided communications for MPs, MEPs and campaign groups. She stood for the Conservative Party in the 2010 General Election in Batley and Spen but is now a member of UKIP.
Prior to becoming involved in politics, Janice ran her own successful marketing communications business. She is divorced with two teenage sons and is about to re-marry.
www.womenon.org