Peter Marshall spotted Ken Livingstone on the Tube

Originally uploaded by Annie Mole

Sure, it may be a PR stunt to show the Mayor of London using the same transport as the rest of us without any apparent bodyguards, minders, PR flunkies or anything else … but I’ve yet to see pics of Boris or Paddick or even Sian Berry of the Green Party using the Tube.

Then again, I distinctly remember reading a quote from The London Paper (24 April, page 11) where she claimed that four people taking a taxi was “as energy efficient as a two-thirds empty bus”. That may be true, but buses still have to run so surely it’s still a net carbon increase?

Oh yes, that’s not to forget the cheerleaders hovering outside the workplace the other day exhorting us to vote for K-E-N…

It’s local elections week in the UK, where people can exercise their democratic right to be totally disinterested at the prospect of voting for local councillors on an ego run while not actually doing that much beyond strutting around committee meetings and the like.

But here in the nation’s Capital, things run a little differently. The election here is for the Mayor of London, and it’s currently a run between the incumbent mayor, former arch-left-winger Ken Livingstone, and a bumbling TV personality/editor turned politican Boris Johnson for the Tories. Oh, Brian Paddick, a gay policeman for the Lib Dems, who is definitely the duller out of the three. Typical Lib Dems, you manage to pick the most famous policeman in London outside of “Shoot him!” Blair, and you still manage to find a boring one.

Anyway, I cycled to work today, and through the mists of smoke’n'sweat coming from my head, I thought I could see a bunch of cheerleaders outside the workplace. I thought it must be an illusion. But no, there were three cheerleaders with Union Jack pom-poms, white T-shirts and skirts, all exhorting us to vote for Ken. Or K-E-N. The candidate who used to be a figurehead for the “Loony Left” arch-left-wing councils of the mid-80s, banning magazines which featured scantily-clad models.

I can’t wait to see what Boris comes up. Although I also dread to think what Paddick will emerge with…