WI: Boris Johnson defeated for re-election

Despite Mayor Johnson's personal popularity, he just won narrowly over the rather unpopular former mayor, Ken Livingstone due to voter discontent towards the Tories. What if for some reasons, Livingstone defeated Johnson narrowly? How would he deal with the London Olympics? Would he politicalize the opening ceremony of London Olympics as a random AH book (I forgot the name, have to check) suggests? Is it possible that the coalition government would once again destroy the post of Mayor of London, despite its pledge in its 2010 manifesto to introduce more direct elections to mayors?
 
Well, the coalition is not going to end the post of Mayor of London just because Labour have control at the moment. That's just rediculous and could not be spun in anyway that would help them.

I don't think there's enough time for Livingstone to politicise the opening ceremony even if he wanted to. And you can bet that Seb Coe would be pretty vocal about complaining if there were attempts to do so.

TBH, the Olympics probably just goes ahead as it would have done anyway. That had all been planned for months or years beforehand.

Now, where Johnson goes will be interesting, though the prospects of a Westminster career look bleak before 2015.
 
Ken wouldn't politicise a thing. He'd have no objection to the OTL 'Marxist European dangerously pro-nurse Trotskyite license fee-paying public transport advert' anyway.

The Coalition couldn't get rid of it, the Thatcher example is one thing but that was after Ken was perceived very badly from his 'coup', rather than a directly-elected incumbent with a million plus votes (which he'd have if he'd beaten Boris).
 
Thatcher did it to him before with the GLC...though it would be harder to pull off with the Olympics looming.

The difference between the GLC and the GLA was that the latter was approved by the electorate in a referendum making it almost impossible to be abolished without a subsequent referendum.

As to the OP, a Boris defeat coming right at the height of the omnishambles would make things difficult for Cameron. The Party and Boris would blame him and Osborne for the defeat, Ozzie in particular might find himself running out of friends. It was even spoken of at the time that a defeated Boris would potentially be the Heseltine to Cameron's Thatcher, he would certainly be trying to get back to Westminster, there's still plenty of ultra safe Tory seats in which a staged resignation would open a chance for him.
 
There are no 'ultra-safe' government seats when you're dealing with current post-omnishambles polling numbers.

This ^ is all a pure replication of OTL post-Boris victory thought paradigms. In reality, if he goes down to defeat, to a dinosaur like Ken Livingstone, in a race in which he was expected to win, there's not going to be any speculation about Zac Goldsmith resigning his seat for this man. Boris will not be the saviour of the party in those circumstances, he'll be a failure; a one-term celebrity who didn't have enough electoral lead in his personal vote pencil to even withstand the challenge of Red Ken.

The central chair on HIGNFY and the right-hand sofa on This Week, those are the only seats that are gonna be vacated for BoJo in those circumstances.
 
Obviously I disagree, from what I remember Boris was clear ahead until the Budget caused the race to narrow and yes it is likely that a stronger Labour candidate could have made the difference. Defeat is going to be pinned on Cameron and especially Osborne, sadly local elections in Britain are rarely decided on local issues but are seen as a chance to give the government a kicking. Boris was being spoken about as a leadership contender long before this year and he certainly has ambitions in that regard, whether he will ever achieve them is another matter but he shouldn't be understimated.
 
Obviously I disagree, from what I remember Boris was clear ahead until the Budget caused the race to narrow

Nobody specified what the POD is here duder; and even if it isn't BoJo messing up his campaign purely by himself, (probably the easiest way of achieving this) I'm not sure it makes a great deal of difference to how he's recieved in defeat. The Tories did a remarkably good job of coming together after those locals; and Bojo had been one of the outriders calling for supply-side reform, so he's in no serious position to act as a wise-after-the-fact critic over George's budget.

The London mayoral is different to a generic local election, it really is very much percieved to be a personal judgement on the candidates. And you're not taking any account of what that sort of deeply personal rejection by millions of voters has on a politician's political stock. If that happens to BoJo he will not, repeat, not, be recieved as the electoral viagra that the Tories need by the London media as he was IOTL. The idea that any defeat of BoJo would, could, be somehow pinned all on Dave and George is fanciful. We all know a politician of the London mayor's stature, in direct personal communion with the voters, lives to a very good extent on their own bread; it is precisely why BoJo didn't go down to defeat, and Ken Livingstone did.
 
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