A report in the Evening Standard says that Labour’s internal polling is showing that this could be very tight on Thurday because the right wing vote is much more motivated to go to the polls than the rest. The report states:-

The Evening Standard has learned that Labour’s own internal polling shows that a low turnout would mean a “very tight” fight with Mr Norris.

The research reveals that Right-wing voters are much more fired up to use their ballot, with the Tories, UK Independence Party and British National Party all likely to benefit.

“As the turn-out goes down so the relative strength of the Right-wing bloc in this electoral system goes up,” a source in the Livingstone campaign said.

The source added: “The most hardened part of the Right of the spectrum (very hard Tories, BNP and UKIP) are much more motivated to vote than Greens, Lib-Dems and Labour.”

Whether there has been an internal poll or whether this has been put out just to encourage Labour supporters to vote we do not know. But it does fit in with the experience in 2000 when there was a huge surge in Norris support in the last three days going up from 17% in the polls to 27.1% of first choices in the actual election. It also fits with opinion poll data showing that Conservatives are much more certain to turn out than Labour. The big danger for Norris, though, is the rise of UKIP and the affect this could have on his core vote.

LATEST LONDON MAYOR BETTING – MAN or PARTY. Both the betting exchanges and bookmakers have a best price on Ken of 1.07. But you can get 16 on Norris and 26 on Hughes with Betfair.