Mayor of London

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See also Lord Mayor of London.

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Ken Livingstone, the current Mayor of London

The Mayor of London is an elected politician in London, United Kingdom. The role, created in 2000, was the first directly-elected mayor in the United Kingdom. The Mayor of London is also referred to as the London Mayor, a form which helps to avoid confusion with the Lord Mayor of London, the ancient and now mainly ceremonial role in the City of London. The Mayor of London is mayor of Greater London, which has a population of over 7.5 million while the City of London is only a small part of the modern city centre and has a population of less than 10,000. The first elected Mayor of London is Ken Livingstone, who was re-elected in 2004.

1 Role
- 1.1 Additional powers
2 Elections
- 2.1 2000
- 2.2 2004
3 Initiatives
4 External links

[edit] Role

The Mayor is responsible for budgeting and strategic planning of some governmental functions across the whole of the London region. The plans of the mayor are scrutinised by the London Assembly and actioned by the Greater London Authority. Responsibilities include transport, the police, fire and emergency services, cultural strategy and economic development.

[edit] Additional powers

The Department for Communities and Local Government announced its final proposals for new powers for the Mayor on Thursday 13th July 2006.[1] These provide for a strengthened role over planning in the capital; and additional strategic powers in a wide range of policy areas including waste, culture and sport, health, climate change and appointments to the boards of the functional bodies.

[edit] Elections

The mayor's office is at City Hall, overlooking the River Thames near Tower Bridge

The Mayor of London is elected for a fixed term of four years, with the first election held in May 2000. As with most elected posts in the UK, there is a deposit, in this case of £10,000, which is returnable on the candidate's winning at least 5% of the first-choice votes cast.

[edit] 2000

Main article: London mayoral election, 2000

The 2000 campaign was incident-filled. The eventual winner, Ken Livingstone, went back on an earlier pledge not to run as an independent after losing the Labour nomination to Frank Dobson. He had earlier indicated in 1998 that he would seek only one term (which he confirmed during the 2000 campaign) when he said in response to the GLA white paper "If I am lucky enough to be elected as London's first mayor ... I would not want to serve more than one term".

The Conservative Party had to replace Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare as their candidate when he was charged with perjury; Steven Norris was selected as his replacement despite tabloid revelations about his many extra-marital affairs. The Liberal Democrat candidate was Susan Kramer.

[edit] 2004

Main article: London mayoral election, 2004

In 2004, the second election was held. After being re-admitted to Labour Party, Ken Livingstone was their official candidate. He won re-election after second preference votes were counted, with Steven Norris again coming second.


Name	Party	1st Preference Votes	%	2nd Preference Votes¹	%	Final	%²
Livingstone, Ken	Labour	685,541	35.7	250,517	13.0	828,380	55.4
Norris, Steven	Conservative	542,423	28.2	222,559	11.6	667,178	44.6
Hughes, Simon	Lib Dem	284,645	14.8	465,704	24.3	N/A
Maloney, Frank	UKIP	115,665	6.0	193,157	10.0	N/A
German, Lindsey	RESPECT	61,731	3.2	63,294	3.3	N/A
Leppert, Julian	BNP	58,405	3.0	70,736	3.7	N/A
Johnson, Darren	Green	57,331	2.9	208,686	10.9	N/A
Gidoomal, Ram	CPA	41,696	2.2	56,721	2.9	N/A
Reid, Lorna	IWCA	9,542	0.5	39,678	2.1	N/A
Nagalingam, Tammy	IND	6,692	0.4	20,391	1.1	N/A

¹Second preference votes are only used to elect the mayor if no single candidate receives more than 50% of the vote. The top two candidates then receive the second preference votes from their eliminated opponents.

²Percentage figures are not officially used on the final votes, they are produced here for illustration and are calculated by the candidates final vote divided by the total of final votes.

[edit] Initiatives

Initiatives taken by the Mayor of London include the Congestion charge on private vehicles using Central London on weekdays, the creation of the London Climate Change Agency, the London Energy Partnership [2] and the founding of the international Large Cities Climate Leadership Group.

They have also included the London Partnerships Register which was a voluntary scheme without legal force for same-sex couples to register their partnership, and paved the way for the introduction by the United Kingdom Parliament of civil partnerships. Unlike civil partnerships, the London Partnerships Register is open to heterosexual couples who favour a public commitment short of marriage.