London mayoral hustings debate with Ken and Boris 2008

On Saturday morning, Troy and I made our way down to the BFI Southbank building to attend a brunch hosted by Stonewall, and then their 2008 London Mayoral Hustings (debate). The major candidates for Mayor of London were in attendance, include Ken Livingstone (current mayor), Boris Johnson (freakkyyy), Brian Paddick, Lindsey German, and Sian Berry. Given that the Mayoral Elections for London are on May 1, this is one of the last debates the candidates had. They each had 5 minutes to speak and address the audience (about 300 people), and then the audience had an hour for Q+A for the candidates. Most of the questions revolved around equal rights (as you may imagine when Stonewall organized the conversations).

Ken Livingstone seemed the most comfortable and credible during the process. Partly, he has the benefit of already holding the office and can point to specific things he has personally done to better affect the lives of people. But having an official record also opens him up to criticism, based on things like "you said you were going to do blah, and it hasn't happened yet." Boris Johnson came across like a freak. Not only did he dodge most questions, but he's on record against equal rights and he had no answer for those questions. For example, he wrote a book in 2001 called Friends, Voters, Countrymen. In it, Boris writes, ".. why a union should not be consecrated between three men, as well as two men; or indeed three men and a dog." The context of the section of the book was him arguing against attempts to equalize rights between gay people and straight people. One might think that if you're running for office and have previousy compared people's relationships to bestiality, you might have prepared a response on what you meant if you are attending a debate hosted by a gay equal rights group. But he hadn't done so, and when directly asked if he would apologize, he would not. Even leaving aside this specific item, Boris came across completely crazy and I'd be terrified if he were elected.

If I were eligible to vote (we're not), I think Ken Livingstone would get my vote. There's also a great online comparison of the 2008 London Mayoral Candidates where you can learn more about their views. You can also read why Civil Partnerships are not Equal to Marriage.

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