Lessons From London's Mayoralty Race

When Conservative Party candidate Boris Johnson defeated Left-winger Ken Livingstone the national Conservative Party did not celebrate into the night.  In Britain everyone who follows politics knows that Johnson presented and presents a challenge to the so-called modernist movement led by Conservative leader David Cameron.

In fact, Cameron and his leadership team did not embrace Johnson as  their London standard bearer. Because along with his larger than life personality, Johnson has a long history of being an independent thinker who had crossed swords with Conservative leaders in the past. Cameron's predecessor had demoted Johnson from the front benches in Parliament and Cameron left him as a backbencher.

Johnson's books, articles, and interviews over the years are filled with pointed conservative assessments of the issues of the day. Johnson's opinions on crime, radical Muslims, London's two tier buses, and his support of the United States were out of step with Cameron's modernist notions. Cameron has been so coy that after a few years at the helm he has not adopted issues platforms on a majority of issues.And he clearly felt uneasy about an opinionated conservative like Johnson.

Throughout the campaign Johnson was left to his own devices and he embraced a Thacherite no nonsense approach to crime in London, he did not back down when the media falsely accused him of anti-Muslim prejudice, and he championed London's old style public buses that Livingstone had banished.

Johnson ran as an unabashed conservative candidate who presented a very different platform than his Left wing opponent. Despite persistent attacks that he was indifferent to the plight of ethnic minorities Johnson stuck to his law and order platform. He (in the footsteps of Thatcher and Reagan) offered non-conservative voting groups, conservative solutions to the ever worsening crime situation. A much larger portion of these voters ended up voting for him than anyone predicted.

Johnson ran a disciplined conservative campaign that did not attempt to turn him into a Leftist but emphasized conservative alternatives to failed leftist polices to serious quality of life issues. His opponent tried to paint him as inexperienced and out of touch with a majority of Londoners. Livingstone failed as Johnson's robust conservative agenda appealed to many of Livingstone's base voters.