Remember the rules have changed for the London Mayoral election
A chance for the Tories?
Next May Labour’s Sadiq Khan will be seeking to defend his position as Mayor of London – a post that was first contested in May 2000.
What we haven’t seen is any real analysis of the rule changes for these elections bought in by Johnson for Mayoral elections which I believe could make a significant difference to the outcome. He was of course the first Tory to hold this position from 2008 to 2016.
When the post was first established voters were given the chance of recording a second preference if their first choice did not make the final two. This option was abolished by Prime Minister Johnson and my view is that this makes a Tory win a bit more likely.
The problem for the left of course is that their vote is generally split between LAB, the LDs and the Greens. Although the Tories have a little problem with Reform this is nothing like as great as that facing the opposition parties.
We saw that in the Mayoral elections that took place last May when the Tories made a surprise Mayoral gain in Bedford with less than a third of the vote. Under the previous voting system this would have been an LD hold.