Have you seen your local politician's recently?

You can always tell when there is a election happening, as suddenly from every nook, cranny and barstool your locally elected officials appear. As you might have noticed it is the Mayor of London election, with elections for the Greater London Assembly running at the same time. Whilst this website is more concerned with Greenwich Council we will cover what we can of this election, as it does of course affect the poor people of Greenwichgrad. This is the first election we will have covered as a blog, as we started about 2 years ago, just around the time of the last local elections for Council in May 2006. As we have said before, we will not tell people who to vote for, but just let you know the inside stories and try to cut though the spin.

First the Mayoral election, the two main contenders are the incumbent Mayor, Ken Livingstone for Labour, with the tories putting up the blond bombshell Boris Johnson, the Lib Dems for what they are worth, have put up the “special” cigarette' smokers favourite policeman, Briain Paddock. The full list is below;

2008 Mayoral Candidates

Richard Barnbrook - BNP

Gerard Batten - UKIP

Siân Berry - Green

Alan Craig - Christian Choice

Lindsey German - Left List

Boris Johnson - Conservative

Ken Livingstone - Labour

Winston McKenzie - Independent

Matt O'Connor - English Democrats

Brian Paddick - Liberal Democrats

Given the way it all works, with people getting two votes (main vote, plus second preference) the mayor is likely to be either Ken Livingstone or Boris Johnson.

It is the election for the GLA representative which is more interesting for Greenwich.

The candidates for this are;

2008 GLA Candidates

Tess Culnane - National Front Party

Len Duvall - The Labour Party

Chris Flood - Socialist Alternative

Stephen Hammond - Christian Peoples Alliance\The Christian Party

Andy Jennings - Conservative Party

Jennifer Jones - Left List

Susan Luxton - Green Party

Johanna Munilla - The English Democrats Party

Brian Robson - Liberal Democrats

Arnold Tarling - UK Independence Party

As Greenwich is part of the GLA constituency of Greenwich and Lewisham the candidates are made up of people connected with both Greenwich and Lewisham. The current incumbent is Len Duvall for Labour. He is well connected with the Greenwich Council Administration, being a former council leader himself. He is also very well connected to Cllr Jackie Smith, Cabinet for Children's and Young People's services. Len Duvall currently chairs the Metropolitan Police committee, on behalf of Ken Livingstone.

Regular readers may also recognise the Tories' candidate, Cllr Andy Jennings, who got in May 2006 for Kidbrooke and Hornfair ward. We have covered how in the past Andy Jennings has tried his hand at blogging, but looks like he can't keep it up.

The Lib Dem's have put up baby faced Cllr Briain Robson, from Lewisham's Lee Green ward.

Greenwich and Lewisham excels itself in being the only GLA constituency which will see a Socialist Alternative candidate, Cllr Chris Flood from Telegraph Hill Ward, Lewisham. Mind you they would probably fit in quite well to Greenwichgrad.

UKIP's Arnold Tarling has stood in Eltham before, to become MP.

The Green's candidate is a councillor for Lewisham's Ladywell ward.

Right now given that Len Duvall is in one of the safest GLA seats for Labour, with 36,251 votes in 2004 it is unlikely that he will lose his job. The interesting battle will be for second place;

2004 GLA Candidates results

Labour - Len Duvall - 36,251

Conservative - Gareth Bacon - 22,168

Liberal Democrat- Alexander Feakes - 19,183

UK Independence - Timothy Reynolds - 13,454

Green - Susan Luxton - 11,271

Christian Peoples - Stephen Hammond - 3,619

Respect - Ian Page - 2,825

In 2004 the Tories came second, with the Lib Dems a close third. Since then Lewisham has gone into No Overall Control, with the Lib Dem's being the official opposition, with 17 Councillors, the rest of the Councillors are a mixed bag of Labour, Tory, Green or socialist party. UKIP were forth in 2004 however these days UKIP are less of a force so it can be expected that a few of the UKIP voters may go back to their natural home of the Conservative party. The Greens in Lewisham also have a couple of Councillors and so their vote could go up, although who they would take votes from these days is anyone's guess.

Greenwich would appear to almost be a mirror image of Lewisham, with the Tories the official opposition, with 13 councillors and the Dynamic Duo of Lib Dem's two councillors. In Lewisham, the Tories have three councillors. So in some respects these two parties are fairly evenly matched for second place.

We will continue to keep an eye on what is going on with the election campaign and will post anything interesting we see. If you have any juicy gossip about this election, especially the GLA part of the election then do let us know: Greenwich.Watch@Gmail.com