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The London mayoral election is on May 5. What have the candidates been up to this week?
With only a week to go, the race for City Hall is getting heated, nasty and very accusatory. But before we get to that, let's start with the news that the BBC asked all 12 mayoral hopefuls to sum up their campaigns in three words. ‘Back my plan,’ said Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith. ‘Stop immigration now,’ said the BNP’s David Furness. Lee Harris of the Cannabis Is Safer Than Alcohol Party went with: ‘Legalise tax cannabis.’ We don’t know what the hell ‘tax cannabis’ is, but we want to smoke some. Our absolute favourite, though, was the Green Party’s Sian Berry who used these three words to sum up her campaign: ‘Homes, clean air, and vision.’ Even if you remove the ‘and’, that’s still four words. She needs to smoke some tax cannabis and do her sums.
We thought we’d put all the silliness about Zac Goldsmith accusing Labour’s Sadiq Khan of giving a platform to extremists behind us last week. But we were wrong. So very, very wrong. Shit got taken up a notch of crazy as the prime minister echoed Goldsmith’s sentiments in parliament. David Cameron accused Khan of appearing on platforms with a London imam who 'supports IS', Suliman Gani, and MPs replied with cries of ‘racist!’ and ‘ham-faced dickhead!’ (okay, not that last one). Gani then called up radio station LBC and pointed out that not only did he vote Conservative in the general election, he even provided canvassers for his local MP’s campaign. He must be heartbroken! ‘Dave! Zac! It’s your buddy Suli! Guys! Where are you going?!’
The Tories also focused on Khan's finances last week, as it emerged that he accepted £30,000 worth of donations from companies controlled from tax havens. If you’re wondering what that pungent stench is, it’s hypocrisy.
Independent candidate Prince John Zylinski, meanwhile, has announced that should he become mayor he would do the following things (only one of which is made up): build a massive statue in Hyde Park made of suspended Spitfire airplanes, force cyclists to use number plates, steal all of George Galloway’s hats, and ban Nigel Farage from London. Vote Zylinski, we say.
Finally, back to Sian Berry, who in a Reddit Ask Me Anything thread was asked if she had stairs in her house. She replied: ‘Yes, my flat is in the attic so the entrance is on the floor below and there are stairs to get into the flat once you’re through the front door.’ Looking forward to hearing more.
Image: Tim Grist
In non-election news Watch a dance tribute to Prince break out on the tube