London's Political Theater

Outsized Personalities Turn Campaign for Mayor Into a Colorful Spectacle

LONDON -- The incumbent buys London's bus fuel from Venezuelan President Hugo Ch¿vez and raises newts for fun. The challenger is a conservative product of England's snootiest schools who has made a career out of wit and a startling squall of white-blond hair.

Both use language with the artful lethality of Muhammad Ali's fists, yet each has a remarkable knack for sticking his foot in his mouth.

And if London voters can't decide between Mayor Ken Livingstone and challenger Boris Johnson in the May 1 election for the city's top office, they can always opt for Brian Paddick, a gay former police commander whose chief campaign supporter is Elton John.

While the presidential primaries are providing the best campaign theater in years in the United States, London is abuzz with its own political spectacle.

"There has never been anything quite like this," said Tony Travers, a specialist in London politics at the London School of Economics. "It is quite a colorful election, particularly given the downright oddity of the main candidates."

The race is ostensibly about crime and transportation woes, preparations for the 2012 Summer Olympics and strategies to fight climate change -- including Livingstone's plan to slap a $50-a-day fee on any SUV that enters the city center.

But the real issue in the race is the men themselves, as their outsized and often outrageous personalities dish Tabasco sauce into the bland milky tea of British local politics.

With six weeks to go, polls, pundits and bookies agree that the contest is neck-and-neck between gritty Livingstone and witty Johnson, with movie-star handsome Paddick giving sly Greek chorus-style commentary from the spotlight's edge.

"I feel like I've just been machine-gunned," Paddick said to laughter at a recent debate, after Johnson recited a rapid-fire list of policy proposals in his mouth-full-of-marbles, upper-crust baritone.

Later in the debate, an audience member in her early 20s complained that she felt unsafe at her local bus stop. Livingstone shot back that bus travel is far safer than when he took office, and that if she didn't see that, "I don't know what you're on."

In an interview, Paddick said Livingstone's treatment of the young woman was "inappropriately aggressive" and showed the mayor's habit of "lashing out indiscriminately at anyone who dares cast any doubt on his record."

"Ken keeps newts," Paddick deadpanned. "And a little-known fact about newts is that when they're under threat from predators, they become poisonous."