Sorry that Ken had to be the sacrificial victim. Will Boris now put his head on a spike - an old Ottoman custom and an 'English' one too if the Horrible Histories are to be believed.
London's Emperor ( we choose Nero - physical and physco likeness[ ha/ha ) has painted himself into a corner, hasn't he?
Lame Duck ( duck? - that is the description foisted on US Prezs who are embarking on their second 4th year term ) Mayor seems appropriate as Boris disclosed, after the polls had closed, that he would return to the Tory back benches in his all-too-obvious attempt at political assassination and becoming a shoo-in heir apparent.
However, as Boris now knows not only has he been in a fight, but his electoral triumph owes more than a lot to Labour voters with an animus toward Labour's candidate, Ken.
He is where he is on sufferance. Not only that - but he won on a low turn-out - always the Tories trump card.
Admittedly, Little Boy Blue is a Card, a regular Joker, but he won't get away with passing awkward matters to deputies better briefed than he. No, not anymore.
In Boris's crude calculation, London is worth two terms but the pinnacle of success in UK politics is PM. And he will not be in harness with those hoi polloi Lib Dems. Deffo!
Cameron will respond by making Boris his 'King's Jester'. Make 'em laff, Boris. And Boris will have to ask 'how loudly?' He can't afford to be seen as an Old Etonian, lordly and patrician, the PM's post his by dint of inheritance for the School's Head Boy.
Boris will have to play the fool. He's type cast. A natural clown. What a performance we can look forward to.

Be a Mayor

Ecstatic that Boris won and good riddance to Ken 'beacon for Islam' Livingstone the most divisive politician in England in living memory. Also, his remarks about Boris and the tory election were so inappropriate for the moment that they show the mind of the man.

“London, a Labour city”. What utter twaddle. Labour may have the support of the recent arrivals and the malcontents, but few of Labour traditional supporters bothered to vote, the majority just keep hoping something better comes along.

So despite pandering to the Capitals 1 million Moslems, despite making the most obscene racist remarks about Jews, despite his sick remarks about Gays in the Tory party, Despite promising to turn London into a "beacon for Islam" - the racist Livingstone still lost. Good riddance to him. Let's hope he emigrates to his beloved islamofascist Iran or apartheid Pakistan.

So despite pandering to the Capitals 1 million Moslems, despite making the most obscene racist remarks about Jews, despite his sick remarks about Gays in the Tory party, Despite promising to turn London into a "beacon for Islam" - the racist Livingstone still lost. Good riddance to him. Let's hope he emigrates to his beloved islamofascist Iran or apartheid Pakistan.

Yes, great news! More Boris is what we want. More Toryism! More Miliband? God give me strength.

There is no reason for the Conservative Party to celebrate: its only figure capable of winning anything is now trapped in the silly non-job of Mayor of London (a metropolis run by central government quangos and the Borough Councils) until a whole year after the next General Election. And even Boris Johnson is going to have his life made a misery by a Labour Assembly.

Ken Livingstone is one of the great long-term winners of British politics. Mayor of London or not, the two flagship pieces of legislation in next week's Queen's Speech will be measures that were "Loony Left" 30 years ago, namely the abolition of the House of Lords and the redefinition of legal marriage to include same-sex couples.

The first was mostly associated with Tony Benn, but the second was most associated with Livingstone. Both are now the policy of the successor to the SDP. Both are now the policy of the Conservative Party. The only party that remains less than convinced is Livingstone's own. The third leg of the stool, bringing the IRA into the government of Northern Ireland, was accepted in principle by all three parties all the way back when John Major was Prime Minister.

Labour's retention of overall control of Glasgow is a significant humiliation for the SNP. It ought not to be. By any objective measurement, the Nationalists won these elections in Scotland. But that was the ground on which they chose to judge the winner. And on that ground, they have lost. Their failure to make anything like their predicted progress is more than a portent of the independence referendum. Alex Salmond increasingly resembles a Shakespearean character who almost has it all but who, in the doomed pursuit of that one last thing, brings it all crashing down around him, ultimately leading to his own destruction.

And while there is still a lot in the tricolour theory of British politics, Labour's more than survival in Scotland and its considerable improvement even on an existing position of strength in Wales, together with its significant gains in the South, mean that there is at least as much truth in the view that Labour is now the One Nation party, holding out against divisive and doctrinaire dangers from Scottish independence to Post Office privatisation, deregulated Sunday trading, toll roads owned by foreign states, the abolition of national pay agreements, and the flogging off of our NHS piece by piece.

That such a party retains its greatest strength in the North of England is only to be expected, since that is where the consciousness of such a sensibility is most developed. But conscious or otherwise, articulate or otherwise, at least as yet, that sensibility exists in every part of the Kingdom. It is the mainstream. It is the majority. It is the norm. It is, if you will, the centre ground. It is going to carry Ed Miliband into Downing Street. But once gets there, his Government and our country would benefit enormously from a body of MPs drawn from ever corner of the Realm and elected specifically in order to keep him mindful of the mainstream, moderate majority.

Such great news!

and I mean that
really

oh good