The Mayor vs Boris Johnson

Mayor of London Ken Livingstoneresponded to the news that Tory MP Boris Johnson is to seek to become the party's Mayoral candidate at next year's elections.

In a statement issued by the Labour Party Mr Livingstone said:

'Boris Johnson has announced he is running for Mayor. He will face the same issues as every other Tory candidate.

'The Tories have opposed the policy that 50 per cent of all housing must be affordable, they have supported abolishing free bus and tram travel for children under 18, they voted to abolish the congestion charge, a Tory government left London with totally inadequate numbers of police and the Tories on the London Assembly have voted against all my budgets to raise police numbers to record levels, they have opposed the living wage for Londoners, and they have voted against the policies that have raised bus and tube ridership to their highest ever levels. These will be the key issues for the Mayoral election.

'But Boris Johnson also has a personal voting record. He did not bother to vote in the House of Commons to defend the Freedom Pass for free travel older people. He did not even bother to vote on the Parliamentary Bill in favour of Crossrail - the most important transport project for London.

'He strongly supported the war in Iraq until this turned into a disaster. He voted against amendments that would have allowed unmarried couples, both heterosexual and homosexual, to adopt children. He voted in favour of hunting.

'On nuclear issues Johnson voted in favour of replacing Trident and did not bother to attend the votes on nuclear power in 2002 and 2006.

'He has the 567th lowest record in Parliament in terms of the number of votes he bothers to attend - which puts him in the lowest 20 per cent of MPs.

'To put someone in charge of London with such a right wing record, who has no experience of managing anything practical at all, and who has shown no serious interest in even the most important issues confronting the capital would not be a joke but seriously damaging for London'.

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