My view

Thursday the 3rd of May 2012, the mayoral elections that saw the country vote for either if they want a elected mayor in the future or who will be the next mayor. First of all is the idea that counties should have the choice whether they elect a mayor. Counties that had that option were Bristol, Nottingham, Manchester, Bradford, Coventry, Birmingham, Leeds, Newcastle, Sheffield and Wakefield. However the governments’ ‘bright idea’ wasn’t so good after all as every single one of those places except Bristol voted, no there is no need for an elected mayor. So what does that tell us apart from mayors are useless much as the process of counting and processing the votes?

So the wonderful man that goes by the name of David Dimbleby said at 6pm on the 4th of May that the results of the London election will be announced at 7pm, so an hours time. Therefore at 7pm I tuned into the TV expecting to see the result of the new London mayor, was it that humiliating Tory Boris Johnson or that lying labour cheat Ken Livingstone? Much to my disapproval Jon Sopel said it may be another hour, fair enough an hour I can cope just as long as it is announced and wrapped up for 8:30 in time for would I lie to you. But wait Jon then said ”we are expecting results at 8:30”. By this point it was everywhere on twitter Boris had won by a narrow gap so why did everyone say so except from the returning officer? By this point I have already contacted the BBC who said they have no idea what is happening. At 8:30 it got pushed to 9:00; at 9:00 it got pushed to 9:30. All this time the BBC was on hold and poor Jon Sopel wouldn’t get off our screen because the results will be announced ‘any second now’.

10:00pm no news yet, Huw Edwards now presenting 10pm news and even that was rushing through things because it was ‘any second’. At 10:30 the interesting part happened. Unbelievably they had lost 2 whole boxes of ballet papers from one constituency, how is that possible? Jon Sopel then crossed back to studio as he knew the results wouldn’t be any time soon. At 11pm in the studio the presenter, Tim Wilcox was doing a newspaper review with a guest. He then said ”Oh my goodness the results will be coming in 7 min”!! The guest exclaimed ”I don’t believe you”, well who would 3 and a half hours late.

Finally at 11:30pm Jon, now looking pissed and was a trending topic on twitter as he was moaning about the delays all the time and looked as if he was going to die any minute! We still had to wait another 20 min though until the candidates came on stage at 11:50. Then the returning officer walked on stage looking depressed and he didn’t even bother to go over the event of a fire alarm going off. He then announced the results and at 12:00am exactly Boris was declared the winner. At this point nobody gave an arse who won we demanded to know why and how that delay happened!!

26 hours after the polling stations were closed the result was in. Boris said ”next time we will do the process by hand to speed things up”. He thanked everyone involved in his campaign and for all who voted. But it wouldn’t be Boris without a cheesy joke which was pre-prepared as it was ”May the 4th be with you” however it was now May the 5th. Ken Livingstone said ”this is my last election” and ”this is the election I most regret losing”. But what an amazing result for the green party who finished 3rd in front of the liberal democrats! I think in the future the 3 main parties will be conservatives, labour and green the liberal democrats will get lost before the 2015 general election. As for Ken he has finished with politics and is going back to gardening.