Today, Boris Johnson's New York counterpart, Michael Bloomberg, is coming to town. The pair will exchange tips about the challenges of running effectively the two most important cities on Earth, and they'll be chinwagging about the pros and cons of their relative roles. According to the Beeb, Boris will be envious of the hefty £30bn budget his doppelgänger controls, while Bloomberg will eye the meager legislative red tape that allows schemes like the congestion......

Our lonely PM's glowering grimace doesn't lend itself easily to sympathy, but it would take a heart as hard as granite (or Granita, even) not to feel for Gordon Brown's plight. Having spent ten years waiting for the top job, in just ten months of Brownism Labour finds itself rudderless, mauled in the local elections and turfed out of City Hall. Yesterday was Brown's first appearance in Parliament since last week's calamities, and he......

Orhan* snaps Boris at the Sikh New Year festival of Vaisakhi in Trafalgar Square on Sunday, nicking a policeman's hat As our new Mayor cycles to work, meets the team and starts taking action on annoying alcohol related transport policies, we took a poke about the London blogosphere to see how the dust is settling. London transport guru, Annie Mole, was decidedly cross on election evening, seeing Boris was onto a winner given, "Whatever you......

You may have noticed that not every element of London's media was truly fair and balanced in their coverage of the Race for City Hall. Chickens, you may commence roosting: one of Boris' bandwagon-jumpers has been given his marching orders for encouraging people to vote for our new Conservative chieftain. Talksport's James Whale has been sacked after breaching Ofcom rules that ban presenters from showing bias towards a political party prior to an election.......

Boris Johnson is the new Mayor of London. The Blond received 1,043,761 (43%) first preference votes compared to Livingstone's 893,877 (37%), with Paddick gaining just 10% of the vote. With neither main candidate reaching the magic 50%, second preference votes were taken into account, giving Boris a victory of 1,168,738 votes over Ken's 1,028,966. The result mirrors local election results all over the UK, where the Conservatives have delivered a savage mauling to Labour......

Tube scammer got £1m out of scam and is fined £11k. Go figure. Guide dogs not good at spotting 3ft deep sewage holes Royal gay sex blackmailers jailed On the edge of our bar stools for the election results... coming up around 20.30 Drive safely, and take umbrella and sunglasses, if you're daft enough to leave London this weekend Image courtesy of Bloo Phoenix via the Londonist flickr group.......

The course of true democracy never did run smooth, as proved at some hapless polling stations in yesterday's election fever. We say fever... it was more like a mild sweat. Polling officials in Barnet were certainly sweating when their ballot papers didn't turn up on time for the earlybird 7am start, disappointing voters eager to elect before work. All was well by 7.21am precisely, though so let's hope the briefly disenfranchised were able to......

That's the partisan message from Londonist today as Londoners go to the polling stations to choose their next mayor and members of the London Assembly. As we write we are reliably informed that a new YouGov poll for today's Evening Standard will show Boris Johnson heading for victory over Ken Livingstone by six percent of the vote after electors' second preferences are taken into account. But any news-stand message on our streets later today......

The day has finally arrived. After months of campaigning, it's finally your turn to have your say and elect a London Mayor for the next 4 years. And not only that, as was highlighted yesterday, there are some other things you need to make your mind up about too. Hopefully, you've had a lovely helpful leaflet through your door to steer you through the polling minefield but if not, here are the basics: 1. Find......

In an attempt to wheeze a bit of life into his flagging mayoral campaign, Liberal Democrat candidate Brian Paddick has called for bus drivers to become 'have-a-go heroes' and tackle crime and anti-social tomfoolery on their double-deckers. The former cop inveigled bus drivers to take action against criminal activities on their rides. He cautioned that they should pick their fights carefully, and "choose which crowd to take on", before (rather like the playground bully)......

So what are the weary vote-chasers' final offers? Ken Livingstone has been in Vauxhall launching a poster campaign advising Londoners to imagine Boris Johnson in charge of a £39 billion public transport improvement programme. It's punchline? "Suddenly, he's no joke." Then he launched his manifesto for women and ignored another YouGov poll while his office responded tartly to a hit and run attack by TravelWatch chairman Brian Cooke. Apparently, Brian wasn't keen on the Freedom......

One of the few things we can be sure of about the mayoral race is that Boris and Ken in particular are knackered. But with just three full campaigning days remaining they must now run harder than ever. If the opinion polls are telling us anything, it is that neither can be certain which of them will win and that every single vote–first or second preference–is precious to them. Livingstone’s strategy between now and......

Eagle-eyed Londoners may have spotted an open-topped "battle bus" doing the rounds recently, Aretha Franklin's "Respect" blaring out and a hirsute gentleman, familiar to reality TV fans and US Congressmen alike, bopping away atop it with a megaphone and a cheeky smile. Yes, it's is none other than George Galloway and his Respect chums on maneuvers. Despite an acrimonious row between Galloway and the pro-SWP goons last year over control of the party (prompting......

OK, this Londonvidium lark is supposed to be a weekend feature. But this is so hilarious we just couldn't wait. A very clever bit of video editing courtesy of London Shite.......

The mayoral race has entered its final lap with the two leading contenders straining madly for the winning tape. The polls still fall into two groups: YouGov's, which continue to show Boris Johnson in the lead, and all the others which show him and Ken Livingstone neck-and-neck. Perhaps the most significant development is that the last two YouGovs have found Johnson's lead diminishing, adding to the general – and largely unscientific – feeling that it's......

Has the final wheel come off Boris Johnson’s 'New Routemaster' policy? The good thing about it was that it came with a promise to restore conductors to the routes currently served by the bendy buses Johnson wants to replace: a bus with a conductor is a friendlier bus, a friendlier bus is a safer bus and so on. Problem is, Johnson has no grip on the economics of the plan, even weeks after he first......

Does anyone know who’s winning? On Monday, according to YouGov, it was Boris Johnson by a massive 13 points. But on Wednesday, according to Ipsos-MORI, it was Ken Livingstone by one, prompting The London Paper to dub him 'Comeback Ken'. So, is Ken coming back or is he a goner? Londonist is as baffled as everyone else but maybe the past week contained some clues about which way the tide is going. On Tuesday,......

Crime - how much does it cost? About £400 per Londoner, apparently. This is the claim made by the TaxPayers' Alliance. The group, dedicated to "campaigning for lower taxes and better government", has divined this sum by taking Home Office and police data on the economic and social costs of crime, then factoring in criminal justice system bills and adding "security measures, physical and emotional costs." Dividing this total - some £3bn - by......

Ah, Brian Paddick. He's almost as much of a media figure as Boris Johnson, which is pretty well why the Lib Dems opted for him as their challenger to the court of Ken (as we noted at the time). This Londonista even remembers sharing the same South London air with the erstwhile police commander during his softly softly stint in policing the mean streets of Lambeth (our notional file on him recalls his Paul......

With only a few weeks to go until the Mayoral Elections BBC London decided to turn its attention to the big 3 contenders' online presences. Who better to consult than your very own Londonist? It's time the race for City Hall addressed some key questions. Where is the best place to get goss on Boris? Is Brian looking for love? And why does Ken refer to himself in the third person anyway? See Londonist......

If you’re paying attention to the mayoral race you probably already know a little about where the candidates stand on crime and bendy buses. But what candidate will be best for your bank account? To help you answer that question, we’ve put together a quick economic summary of the big-party candidates: Ken Livingstone We already have a pretty good idea of what the incumbent will do in this area — more of the same.......

The Blond is immortalised in song, courtesy of MankiniMan.......

Having previously interviewed Sian Berry, the standard-bearer for the Greens now currently in a pact (electoral, not economic or suicide we assume) with Labour's Ken Livingstone, Londonist sent a set of common questions out to (most of) the other candidates in the May 1st mayoral election. First up is Gerard Batten, standing for the UK Independence Party, who doubles up as one of the capital's representatives in the European Parliament (the existential considerations of......

Muddled in the mind about who you're going to vote for in the upcoming Mayoral elections? The Vote Match website will help you out. You're asked to agree or disagree with 25 statements, and then indicate the issues that matter most to you. Vote Match compares your answers to those of the main candidates and presents you with a ranked list of who you might like to vote for. It has some inevitable holes -......

There was so much crazy action in the mayoral campaign last week that Londonist was left gasping to keep up. The most entertaining bit was when Boris Johnson launched his environment manifesto with a photo opportunity on Hampstead Heath. BBC London viewers and others were treated to the splendid sight of The Blond hacking his way through a patch of north London undergrowth – perhaps specially provided for the occasion, who knows? – wearing......

Londonist was at the Royal Festival Hall on Tuesday for the formal launch of Ken Livingstone’s mayoral election campaign. Setting aside the usual cynicism about politicians and the worrying stuff in those Evening Standard exposes, it was a stirring occasion. Doreen Lawrence introduced the mayor, paying tribute to his achievements including his contribution to putting the capital at ease with its own cosmopolitanism. He thanked her for her role in improving the attitude of......

A Boris emulator from Chris Roberts, creator of the Evening Standard Headline Generator. Does exactly what it doesn't say, more or less, in a manner of speaking, on the can.......

It's still difficult to tell how the mayoral race is going - where are all the opinion polls? But there's no doubt that, in the past week, the Livingstone campaign has made a huge effort to get its show on the road. The launch of his transport manifesto at Stratford station on Monday was designed to invite the most damning of comparisons between the present mayor's apparent grasp of the scale and complexity of......

The bendy bus comes in for regular bashings, and the articulated eyesore is one of the hot topics in the Mayoral election, with Boris Johnson threatening to scrap it altogether in favour of a remixed Routemaster. Now a new report comes along that suggests the bendy's popularity with fare-dodgers is bigger than ever. According to a Liberal Democrat study, fare evasion has almost doubled from 2.2% in 2003 to 3.9% last year. This coincides......

The clearest thing to emerge from the mayoral race this week is that no one can agree about buses. The arguments began last Wednesday when Boris Johnson told Vanessa Feltz that the '21st Century' Routemasters he wants to replace bendy buses with would all have conductors and that these would cost 'eight million quid'. Ken Livingstone went on the show next day to say Boris’s figures were fine except he’d left a nought off......