Ken Livingstone has a 55 per cent lead over the official Labour contender Frank Dobson in the race for the London mayoralty, according to an ICM poll for the Guardian taken on the day when he committed himself to stand. It is no use looking for precedents.
All previous records are largely irrelevant to what is happening in London.
That's for two reasons. Indeed, there is something more of a race for a presidency in it than either of those. Personality will count for more and party labels for less than in any conventional contest. Second, the nature of the electorate in Britain has anyway changed, as the 1997 general election showed beyond doubt. Old ideological alignments, old largely unthinking party allegiances, are more and more being binned.