I don’t think I’m alone there either. You shouldn’t assume that most people are stupid because they have different views to you, no one has all the facts. Its a shame because you make some good points but your delivery leaves people like myself, who voted for Boris, less inclined to listen to you or take in what you’re saying.

I guess it comes down to whether you want to achieve something or just throw your toys out of the pram.

I don’t believe for a moment that anyone voted for him because of his education. And for someone with such an excellent education he’s shown unimaginably bad judgment in his new office already.

And he’s never to this day apologised for the homophobic things he’s said in the past. Fair enough he was very supportive of Pride and even led the march, but he’s never explained why or how he’s changed his ideas.

Boris has an education that is of a better standard than most of us and clearly appealed to a majority of voters.

As for his apologies – we are all human, even for a man whose hairstyle is under such pathetic scrunity when it isn’t even that extreme, and we therefore all make mistakes. If a politician says the wrong thing and apologise, of course, it could be just to save public embarrassment, but equally it could be a genuine apology after realising they made a mistake.

Also the criticisms brought against Ken didn’t really effect my opinion on him and he’s probably my favourite politican ever because of what he’s done for London since 2000. I really feel like he’s transformed this city and Boris is going to undo all of that.

I haven’t said that standing up to crime is a problem either. For goodness’ sake I voted for Brian Paddick, despite my disgust with the Metropolitan Police! He offered a completely different approach to policing which actually might help those most in need and stop the various, worsening cycles, in part around race. I think Ken made a good start in stopping a decline in police numbers and funding, but his uncritical approach to Ian Blair was a disaster, and Johnson’s zero-tolerance, using the Met as a blunt instrument is similarly stupid. It’s been tried, it doesn’t work.

I do accept the result, however I dislike the result intensely – you similarly have to accept that (or just don’t read the blog after all, it’s only a blog – why read something you dislike? I don’t exactly read the Standard lol). Livingstone had his faults, you’re dead right. And the best spin you can put on the Lee Jasper affair was that his management of those closest to him ended up lax through arrogance – casual cronyism because he’d been in too long and couldn’t even see it for what it was. I also wanted a change, but Johnson is without doubt in my mind a regressive one – incompetent and ignorant with no honesty about his platform (£8 million or £110 million?) or responsibility for what he believes. Dragging up his many statements about race and sexual orientation in the past is indeed practically pointless – but they weren’t what I based any of my current distaste for him on in the first place. On a purely practical level do you really think that Mayor Johnson would introduce an innovation like the partnership register, which made so much difference to people’s lives at the start of the decade, and which was the precursor to civil partnerships? I don’t. You may suggest that’s not his job – I would argue the bar for his job has been set pretty high in diversity issues.

I respect much of what you put, although it’s a shame you chose to remain anonymous. It’s also a shame that you took so much of what I wrote personally that we might not find the common ground we might share. Thanks for taking the time to post though, I do appreciate it.

I don’t think someone having an opinion on whether the legalities of gay marriage should is right or not quite counts as homophobia. Some people seem to forget that we don’t have gay marriage anyway, we have civil unions – which Boris supports. So why are people not having a go at Tony Blair for not legislating gay marriage and only settling for civil unions instead? As for section 28, that’s a debate from the last century. Time has moved on from that. As a gay individual myself, Boris’ views on section 28 isn’t of any concern when it is not even under his jurisdiction as mayor of London.

Crime – I think it is important for the mayor to focus on crime, especially gang crime which is a serious problem. I’m sure you are update with the statistics of black on black crime being considerably higher than black on white. So as a black person myself, crime is an extremely important issue to me as well. Not just to white middle class people in the outer London boroughs. I want to be able to feel safe on my way home from work. So Boris’ policy of zero tolerance approach to crime is definitely the way forward.

Racism – haven’t got much to say on a man’s alleged racism when he is married to a half Sikh woman himself and when one actually reads the incriminating article where he used the term ‘piccaninnies’, anyone with a proper grasp of English language can clearly see he is being sardonic and using the term in jest. Nevertheless, he has since apologised. Something Ken Livingstone has failed to do with his anti-Semitic remarks. And while speaking of Livingstone’s lack of apologies, I didn’t hear any apologies for hanging around with a suicide-bomber sympathiser who holds extreme views on homosexuality either. If you complain about Boris, you should listen to what Al Qaradawi has to say on homosexuality!

Eton – I doubt eight year old Boris had much choice of which school to go to, but I think we are all aware that Eton is a very good school academically. So if there is anything to be said about his Eton education, it should be that he is clearly more than qualified enough to take on the job of Mayor.

Having said all that, it is of course your democratic right to choose who you want as mayor. But democracy has spoken, you will have to accept that now. And also please don’t presume to speak for me, as a homosexual from an ethnic minority background as you have tended to do in some of your posts. I voted for Boris, and I am proud. One important thing you should always remember is that we are all individuals.

The one thing I especially hated about Livingstone is the way he would use minority groups to play off each other to further his own interests. He was divisive figure, and London, in my view is much better off without him! As for Boris, I think those who opposed his candidacy should try and be objective and look at his time as Mayor rather than drag up insignificant issues from the past.