Boris, Brian and Ken Go Head to Head

In an hour-long special edition of London Talking, the three main mayoral candidates for London pitted their debating skills on ITV, giving us all a good foretaste of what we can expect over the next 111 days. Brian Paddick drew the short straw and had to go first, but he held everyone’s attention and commanded respect. It was fascinating to see how keenly Ken Livingstone was listening to him. Indeed, such was Ken’s deference that I suspected that he was even talking up Brian’s chances, in a Machiavellian attempt to stop wavering voters from backing Boris Johnson.

Ken himself seemed tired, and although initially courteous, soon got rattled when Boris Johnson kept harrying him in schoolboy fashion. In fact, as the programme progressed, it descended into little more than a slanging match between the two current front-runners. Brian in contrast kept his cool, and he will be well advised not to be tempted into such shenanigans. Boris Johnson may be a mop-haired media darling, but he came over as half-vacuous and half-vicious — not a pleasant combination. He totally failed to refute justified criticism of his lack of experience either of managing a large budget and a large staff, or of speaking up for London in the House of Commons.

One small technical point: Brian has to learn to speak without constantly consulting his notes. It is a technique that can be acquired, while still keeping to time, as anyone who works in radio knows. But on the plus side, Brian was the only candidate who stayed within his allotted time, both in his initial presentation and in his concluding remarks, whereas both of the other two over-ran and were buzzed, on both occasions.