Jaakko Eino Kalevi - No End

Tram driver by day, cult psych-rocker by night.

Why Tessa Jowell should stand for Mayor of London

In February I placed a bet on Tessa Jowell becoming the next Mayor of London.

No bookies were offering odds on her at that time, but Ladbrokes said they could give me 25/1 and so I took them up on their offer. Her odds have since dropped to 12/1. The results of a new poll out today should make those odds drop even further.

YouGov asked which of the following “would be the best Labour candidate for London
Mayor in 2016?”

Eddie Izzard: 21%
Tessa Jowell: 17%
Diane Abbott: 9%
David Lammy 7%
Andrew Adonis: 6%
Sadiq Khan: 5%

Excluding Eddie Izzard, who has said he would not stand until 2020, Jowell is the clear public favourite to be Labour’s next candidate. Meanwhile, the current favourite with the bookies and the Labour leadership, Sadiq Khan, barely registers.

Unfortunately YouGov didn’t include the only Labour candidate to have declared so far, Christian Wolmar. Hopefully they will next time. In any case, Jowell is the new front runner to be Labour’s candidate in 2016. So why is this?

Well if you drill down into the numbers it becomes obvious that Jowell has cross party support among voters. According to YouGov, 17% of Conservatives back her and a significant 29% of Liberal Democrat voters do the same. This compares to just 7% and 2% for Sadiq Khan.

And this is when there is still a wide filed. If Labour select her, then those numbers would only improve

And it is this cross party approval which is central to Jowell’s appeal. There are not many Labour politicians who are on good terms with both Ken Livingstone and Sarah Sands. Jowell is one of them.

I make no comment on Jowell’s suitability for the job. That’s for Labour and ultimately voters to decide. This is only a comment on her chance of becoming the next mayor. And of the current crop of potential candidates, Jowell is way out ahead.

According to those close to her, Jowell is still undecided about whether to stand to become Labour’s candidate in 2016. The results of this poll should help make up her mind.

What Boris Johnson really thinks of China

Boris Johnson and George Osborne are on a tour of China this week, accompanied by a rather large begging bowl.

According to George, British attitudes towards China need to change.

“I think there is a bit of a British attitude which treats China as a sweatshop on the Pearl River. One of the things I’m trying to do this week in China is to change British attitudes to China.”

Perhaps he could start with the attitude of his travel companion, who believes that: “Chinese cultural influence is virtually nil and unlikely to increase” and thinks “the Chinese have neither the ability nor the inclination to dominate the world.”

It’s worth reading the whole of Boris’s 2005 Telegraph piece on China for explanations of why Boris thinks “almost all” of Chinese culture is imitative of western culture and why China is “not even out of the paddock” in the global race.

It’s also worth reading this later piece in The Spectator where he adds that:

“To see how remote is the day of Chinese cultural dominance, ask yourselves how many Westerners would have surgery to make themselves look more Chinese.”

Charming.

I was particularly struck by Boris’s thoughts on teaching Western kids Mandarin.

It has become a cliché of geopolitical analysis to say that China is the next world superpower, that the 21st century will belong to Beijing, and that we had better get in tutors to teach our nippers Mandarin if they are to make it in the new world order. It is all stark staring nonsense… We do not need to teach babies Mandarin.”

But that was then and this is now. Here’s the same Boris Johnson speaking in China today (as quoted in the Guardian)

Osborne and Johnson engaged in a bout of offspring one upmanship. Osborne said his 10-year-old daughter was learning mandarin. Then Johnson went one better. “George mentions his daughter, I have a 16-year-old and she is not only learning Mandarin George, she’s coming here next week to pursue her studies.”

It’s funny how attitudes can change isn’t it?

Just launched http://t.co/UDEamPrUhk – our 1st ever dedicated Chinese language study & visit website for London

— Boris Johnson (@MayorofLondon) October 13, 2013

Saint Etienne & Paul Kelly - How We Used to Live

Director and pop band team up again to pay homage to the capital.

The London Film Festival: a guide

Only Lovers Left Alive

Less glamorous than Cannes, less star-studded than Venice, and smaller than Toronto, it’s the 57^th yearly film festival organised by the British Film Institute. But what it lacks in bling it makes up for in quality: this year’s line-up is widely seen as the strongest in a long while. Opening day coincides with the BFI Player launch – essentially iPlayer for cinephiles – which will screen daily reports from the festival as well as classic and contemporary films. LFF runs 9-20 October.

One Minute With Brice Stratford - Cannibal Valour in St Giles

Sex, death and deceit. The summoning of devils and six-way swordfights. This season The Owle Schreame Theatre Company is resurrecting 3 graphic Jacobean tragedies and premiering two 400 year old plays. Director Brice Stratford tell Snipe about his current rep season and “The Cannibal Valour of Bussy D’Ambois”

Conflict over new Dalston flats goes beyond the usual gentrification angst

The fight over The Teardrop flat complex in Dalston is a minor battle in a war about what Zone 2 of London will look like in 10-20 years from now.

Dustin Wong: 'I'm a hermit by nature'

Snipe talks to the guitar virtuoso, now residing in Japan.

One Minute With Kate Garner's Warrior Women.

Featuring original and reworked portraits of Pussy Riot, Patti Smith, Bjork, Yoko Ono and Kate Moss, photographer Kate Garner’s new show “Warrior Women” opens at the Zebra One Gallery this month.

Innovative opera company on why you should try their Hackney Empire shows

Why should you, a culturally omnivorous but somewhat flighty individual who suspects opera might be an artform of the past, consider going to see performances of Mikado and Madame Butterfly at Hackney Empire this week?