Our campaign for mayor has registered at number seven on the Londonelectsyou website after only 24 hours online and I am currently featured as candidate of the day. Or rather you are, as we remain the only campaign with a manifesto written by the people and for the people. Don’t forget you can still contribute as we have a few days before we announce our full manifesto. Elsewhere Wednesday’s Evening Standard featured our wind-up toy race outside City Hall last week and the LondonPaper chose to publish a picture of me looking remarkably fat and bumptious. Thanks for that.
Tag Archive for 'campaign'
A quiet morning at Hodges HQ as we mulled over Boris Johnson’s decision to actually pay rent for his campaign headquarters, a decision which we really have to applaud. But that’s enough of him and his toff chums, our campaign - the people’s campaign - gains momentum every day (you’ll notice our financial pledges are increasing all the time) and today we have joined up with the socially progressive website www.londonelectsyou.co.uk.
Dedicated to picking a truly independent candidate for mayor of London, the site has promised to award £50,000 to the campaign of the candidate who gets the most online votes by 18 March. So, if you’re committed to our people’s manifesto please log in and cast your votes.
Find out at Time Out’s exclusive London-themed Mayoral pub quiz, held on Tuesday March 18 at a central London boozer. Questions will be compiled by a London expert and there will be prizes, as well as a free drink for every competitor. If you have a team of six you would like to enter for this sensational event, email mayor@timeout.com or just post your details on here and we’ll get back to you.
One of the main planks of our campaign for Mayor is to fight the shockingly undemocratic nature of the process. To qualify for the actual election not only do you need to find £10,000 but a candidate is also required to find ten signatures from registered voters in each of the London boroughs and the City of London. Fair for everyone? No, because if you are a registered political party you have access to the electoral rolls, effectively handing you the information on a plate. If you are an independent candidate you don’t get to see the electoral rolls and have to do it yourself. So I must be off, I’m walking round Haringey with pen and paper tonight. In fact, that’s me knocking at the door.
Well, it seems all the major press are getting word of my campaign. Respected industry magazine, Press Gazette ran a feature on my Mayoral activities, and in particular my stance against the litter-causing London freesheets. Read Press Gazette article
They have yet to come out fully in support of my candidacy but seem to be getting behind the cause and there’s also an article on their breaking news blog, The Wire which includes a handy link to help you part with your all hard-earned pennies and make a donation. With your help we can reach the magical £10,000 mark. Read more here
Tonight our campaign gets significantly louder as I have to shout to be heard above three sensational bands at Time Out’s On the Up gig at Bar Academy (16 Parkfield St, N1 Centre. Nearest tube Angel). Time Out campaign staff will be there to take any donations you are able to make and any ideas you have for our ‘peoples’ manifesto. I’ll be the tall bloke on stage at 8.30 going ‘vote for me’.
Q. Boris Johnson’s ‘five-point plan’ in your ‘Trident On Trial’ piece (TO 1957) is evidence enough why he should not be in Parliament, let alone a Mayoral candidate. Without pointing out the irrelevance of scanners at stations to the gun crime problem, his proposed solution of building sports academies is insulting. Not all young black men are 100-metre hurdlers. Why stop there? You could also build dancing schools and a libido museum. Education, careers and aspiration is an alternative to crime. A simple increased investment in teachers and schools would do more good than perpetuating the stereotype that we are all sportsmen. Fullen Bless, by email
A. Hear! hear! Though the Mayor has no direct control over education he can influence the course it takes. Unlike Ken we are campaigning for a city-based income tax that would divert money to facilities and educational projects in London’s poorer areas. And these wouldn’t just be sporting and musical, though these are obvious ways to reach disenfranchised youth, white or black, in London.
Q. When opinion polls are on a knife-edge, is it really that difficult to make a decision between Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson? Ken champions London’s multiculturalism and action on climate change, while Boris Johnson was critical of Nelson Mandela’s victory over apartheid in 1994 and welcomed George Bush’s ’scrumpling up’ of the Kyoto Treaty. This is the real choice. Is Time Out scared to take on the Evening Standard? Ben Folley, N17
Q. It is clear that in the run-up to the Mayoral election that there are only two obvious choices: Ken or Boris. For Time Out to launch a campaign for its own candidate in light of this is not only an ego-driven waste of time, but it shouts of a lack of courage to back a real politician. Ken Livingstone, no matter what you personally feel about him, is an accountable politician who stands up for his views and isn’t afraid of being unpopular. He celebrates multiculturalism in London and stands up for the poor. Boris Johnson knows that if he really stood up for his views in public (these include not only the well-documented racist comments, but also opposition to the Kyoto Treaty, minimum wage and affordable housing), he would be very unpopular, and instead woos voters with lies. He tolerates multiculturalism in London and would be a disaster for the poor. Is it a difficult choice? Sarah Joyce, by email
A. Time Out’s purpose is not to be an automatic supporter of Ken Livingstone, but the voice of creative London. This campaign is based in large part on a democratic canvas of our readers and many of them, unlike Ben and Sarah, are unhappy with Ken’s regime. Why, in a democracy, should we stifle that voice?
Continue reading ‘Hodges takes time off the campaign trail to answer your questions’
The Great Cake Assault
Which candidate would you most like to eat? Taste them all when Time Out’s Michael Hodges launches a cake assault at 1pm, outside Topshop, Oxford St, W1.
So why should a bad-tempered former toilet cleaner from the North Riding of Yorkshire be Mayor of London? Well, a long time ago, a farm boy from Gloucester called Dick Whittington managed something similar. But more importantly, the relative obscurity of my beginnings actually counts in my favour – I came to London by choice not accident of birth and now, after more than 20 extraordinary years in this occasionally strange, frequently unsettling but always addictive city, it is time to put something back.
I’ll admit I lack some of the qualifications of the three main candidates – I didn’t go to Eton, I have no experience of running a major city and I did not achieve a high rank in the Metropolitan Police. But my experience of being a Londoner means I understand this city in a way that the other candidates don’t.
As well as cleaning the capital’s toilets I have worked as a doorman, been a professional bongo player, fitted the air-conditioning unit at the Chelsea Cinema on the Kings Road, been knocked down twice on London streets (by different cars), been ejected from several art galleries, recorded a single, put the roof on the University of North London, been booed off stage in Brixton, had a drug-induced breakdown in a Kilburn cemetery, rowed the Boat Race course, been chased by Millwall fans, managed a pub (not for long, things got out of hand) and had several knives pulled on me.
I have lived in Greenwich, Camberwell, Putney, Barnes, Balham, Clapham, Shooters Hill, Battersea and on a boat on the Thames. I’ve even crossed the river and laid my head in Tufnell Park. In short I have lived a London life, and that experience makes me uniquely qualified among the runners for Mayor of London.
But I don’t just bring my own life to the mayoral campaign; I hope to involve your lives as well. I see myself as representing you – London’s most knowledgeable, canny and generally clued-up citizens. This really is your campaign and my objective is to get your voice heard. I’m also planning to have some fun along the way.
I am not just standing against the other candidates, and if I am honest there is much in the Liberal Democrat, Labour and Green manifestos that I agree with. Nor is this an extended joust with Boris Johnson (although extended jousts with Boris in public parks with mud flinging, food stalls and flagons of mead would be very popular) but a serious attempt to shake up a system that presently lets Londoners down.
I may not win, I may not even raise enough money for the nomination (I’m chasing £10,000
and since the cash machine swallowed my bank card last week I’ll be needing help) but, just perhaps, we can pick up some momentum and let the career politicians know that the votes of 200,000 Time Out readers cannot be taken for granted.
And, like Dick Whittington, I’ve got a cat.
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