With just a week before voting closes in Labour’s contest to select a 2012 Mayoral candidate, hopefuls Oona King and Ken Livingstone have been taking their respective campaigns and messages around the capital.
Ms King spent the morning meeting with the London Chamber of Commerce where her campaign spokesman said she discussed the capital’s commercial and financial development including the need to “progress” airport development.
She has also published a policy booklet drawing together her various campaign commitments and policies.
Meanwhile Mr Livingstone was at City Hall this morning to join bus workers and supporters campaigning against fare increases and “attacks on the wages and conditions of bus workers” ahead of attending this morning’s Mayor’s Question Time session.
The former Mayor has recently pledged to ensure “bus workers’ wages are taken out of the competitive tendering process” if re-elected in 2012 and this morning claimed increased fares and “the government’s plan to cut spending including on transport, threaten to roll back the progress that saw London’s buses providing a frequent and more reliable service.”
When asked about Boris Johnson’s recent criticisms of Government spending, Mr Livingstone said: “Boris has spent 20 years writing about the sort of cuts Cameron is implementing” and said this record would make it “difficult” for his successor to distance himself from any public backlash against spending cuts.
Livingstone’s campaign received a boost with the news that Islington South and Finsbury MP Emily Thornberry has endorsed him.
In an apparent reference to her opponent’s campaigning against cuts Ms King issued the following statement: “This morning I met London’s business leaders at the London Chamber of Commerce – where we talked about the importance of how to ensure that London is a city fit for the 2020s.”
“If London is to succeed it does not need industrial conflict, but politicians who will engage with every part of the capital to get things done and secure the capital’s future.”
Voting closes next Wednesday (22nd September) with the result due to be announced on Friday morning.
