It would have been a different result if London (as it should have) had another voice, but it doesn't and instead has to settle for the half-arsed pseudo-national the Evening Standard, which completely failed Londoners with its partisan election coverage.
The Evening Standard has long battled with Ken Livingstone and the animosity runs deep. Part of that was of the former Labour mayor's own making, in particularly the bust-up over the comments relating to anti-Semitic comments made to a Jewish reporter, Oliver Finegold, on the paper.But that alone does not excuse the single-minded campaign run by the paper's editor Veronica Wadley and chief political hack Andrew Gilligan who claimed yesterday tried to claim in the Independent that it was not "the Standard wot won it for Boris.
"What the Standard can claim is this. Firstly, in the same way as Boris brought together an existing anti-Ken majority, our investigations into Lee Jasper and the missing millions crystallised many Londoners' existing doubts about Livingstone."Had our news stories been 'spurious', 'virulent' or "Tory campaigns" they would not have mattered. But they were factual and measured, thoroughly and transparently sourced, widely followed-up, had important real consequences, such as resignations and arrests, and have of course never, in any specific particular, been denied."
Gilligan is fooling no one. If you needed proof read his amusing line about while there was plenty to find on Livingstone the Standard found it hard to find stories about Boris.
"I was the first reporter to expose what became Johnson's single biggest campaign headache, his unrealistic Routemaster bus costings. Beyond that, we looked – quite hard – for other things, but as he hasn't been in power for the last eight years, there was little new to find."
With dwindling sales, the paper can ill afford to alienate so many readers, but that did not stop it as it helped to put the previously unelectable Boris into City Hall where he can quaff champagne and caviar and wonder what the hell he has got himself into.The election campaign is undoubtedly the paper's last hurrah, but it has served owners, the Daily Mail & General Trust well. It faced an uphill battle getting its rail distribution deal for the lucrative Metro renewed under Livingstone. Not so under Boris. He and the Tory party owe the paper a big fat thank you.That made its campaign as politically cynical as it gets. Its partisan political coverage is in stark contrast to US rivals. In New York, the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post endorsed Democratic Presidential contender Barack Obama. "We don't agree much with Obama on substantive issues. But many Democrats will. He should be their choice on Tuesday."The Evening Standard did not agree with Ken Livingstone or anything he stood for. It ignored his record on the key issues of transport, housing and the environment and then sort to dismantle him individually and politically in the most lamentable way possible. The only body it seems to come out of this campaign with any credibility is YouGov. In the end, it was spot on with its predictions. Its press release over the weekend was headlined: YouGov exactly right in mayoral election and that it was.Its final poll, published on Thursday morning, showed Boris leading Livingstone by 53%-47%. The result? Boris won by 53%-47%.Other market research firms also conducted six surveys over the same period and none of them showed Boris well ahead. Their figures ranged from a lead for Livingstone of 4% to a lead for Boris of 2%.YouGov, run by Tory Peter Kellner, partnered with the Standard and fought off complaints by the Livingstone team about possibly flawed results, and remained confident to the end. Did they know something that we didn't? I'm guessing not.
Gordon Macmillan
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