Johnson sees election lead cut in half

Johnson’s lead over Livingstone slips to 6 points

Johnson’s lead over Livingstone slips to 6 points

Boris Johnson has seen his lead in the mayoral election cut in half in the last fortnight according to the latest poll of London voters from YouGov.

The poll of just over 1000 voters found that 46% would now vote for Mr Johnson compared with 39% for the incumbent Labour candidate Ken Livingstone.

Just two weeks ago the poll showed 49% of Londoners would back Mr Johnson compared to only 36% for Mr Livingstone.

There have been some suggestions that the issue of whether Mr Johnson is competent to do the job of acting as London’s mayor is beginning to affect the way people say they will vote on May 1st.

Mr Livingstone said every Londoner could now be sure their vote would count in the election adding all polls showed the race was neck and neck.

“The choice is clear on May 1st. London can vote to continue to move forward further as one of the world’s most forward looking and progressive cities, or it can retreat into a narrow, backward looking, Conservative London under Boris Johnson,” he said.

“More than 350,000 Londoners will have a vote for the first time at this election and I particularly appeal to them to keep our city going forward.”

Meanwhile a spokesperson for the Boris Johnson Mayoral Campaign said: “Ken Livingstone says he wants to focus on policies and not celebrities and yet he does the opposite. On a day when Boris Johnson is meeting shopkeepers that have been robbed several times in this city, the Mayor chooses to focus on people who make the gossip pages and not the news pages.”