Johann Hari

Wherever the London Labour tribe gathers, they panic and weep and commiserate about Gordon Brown – and then a new whispered discussion begins. Who should be Labour’s candidate against Boris in 2012?

The political circumstances will be drastically different. The Conservatives will (alas) almost certainly have been in Downing Street for two years or more. London will be on the brink of staging the Olympic Games. If we are a jittery city – with the Games running behind schedule and over-budget – Boris won’t be able to blame a Labour government. But if they look likely to be a success, Boris will probably have the political wind at his back.

Snuffling out mayoral candidates in a parliamentary system isn’t easy. A political model dominated by party discipline doesn’t throw up the charismatic individualists you need for City Hall. It pasteurises politicians, training them to be dull and not distract from The Leader.

The obvious contender is come-back Ken. He has already declared his intention to run again at the age of 67, saying this weekend: “Tell me if this is too much information, but my prostate is as smooth as a billiard ball.” I’m a fan of his, and I think his achievements will look even more impressive after the Boris and Dave Etonian wall-game has dragged on for two years.

But I think there is a better Labour candidate still: Oona King. She was born in North London to a Jewish mother and a black-American father, and educated at the local comp. All through her career in London politics, she has been driven by the issues that dominate City Hall: housing and transport. If you even mention the word ‘housing’ in her presence, a three-hour lecture tumbles out about overcrowding and damp and council estates, all jammed with statistics, stories from her old Tower Hamlets constituency, and the burning hunger to do more than Boris ever would.

Oona is down-to-earth, clever, and a Londoner to her fingertips. Like Ken and Boris, everybody feels they know her. The issue that brought her career crashing down – Iraq – won’t be a big factor, since City Hall has no say on foreign policy. The only reason that she might hold back is she has just adopted a little boy and wants to spend time with him.

By 2012, we may well have a mixed-race President of the US by then. What better symbol of London than to pick a black-Jewish woman who has dedicated her career to lifting up the poor of all races as our leader?

This article was also accompanied by some smaller boxes:

Box I:

The tube is crammed with posters telling us - quite rightly - we will be prosecuted if we are “abusive” to the staff. But can’t we cut a deal: we won’t be rude to the tube workers if they stop being so bloody rude to us? I was about to get on the Northern Line recently when I saw a tube worker putting up a sign saying: “Today, there is a special service between Camden Town and Edgware.” With a friendly smile, I asked what they meant. “It means,” he snapped, “there is a special service.” Right. Does that mean there are more trains? Fewer? A replacement bus? “No,” he said, looking at me as if I was a simpleton. “It’s a special service. What part of that don’t you understand?”

Box II:

Is Lyndsay Duncan Britain’s most under-rated actress? I just saw her in the debut play by 20 year-old Polly Stenam ‘That Face’ at the Duke of York’s Theatre, where she plays an alcoholic mother slowly slipping away from sanity. She can pack decades of grief and loss and pain into a single sigh. In this play, she has a two-minute conversation with the speaking clock that condenses more truth than most actresses achieve in a career. Yet she is not yet ranked alongside Judi Dench and Eileen Atkins as one of our greats. Is it because she’s not just talented, but beautiful and blonde?

Box III:

I see Bernard Manning’s ashes have been turned into a mosaic to stand forever outside his Embassy Club in the North. (Presumably he wasn’t allowed to place it in Hitler’s bunker.) This set me off on a google-hunt for what to do with my own remains. It turns out you can have them turned into a diamond, fired into space, or pressed into a Frisbee. (“Let’s go throw Dad’s remains around the park!”) I’d like mine to be mixed with seed and fed to the pigeons in Trafalgar Square so they fly me all over London. Every time my friends are swooped on by these winged diseased rats, they’ll sense my presence, and smile.