CONSERVATIVES were today hoping to put the cherry on the cake of their overnight electoral victories by seizing the London mayoralty from Labour for the first time.
Boris Johnson was refusing to claim victory ahead of the official announcement.
"I think the party's done fantastically nationally but London is a very different kettle of fish. We'll have to see what happens," he told reporters.
Aides to Mayor
Ken Livingstone insisted that he remained "optimistic" despite Labour's drubbing in the polls in England and Wales.
Gordon Brown – who spoke by telephone to Mr Livingstone last night – also refused to concede defeat. However the Prime Minister struck a valedictory note when he spoke to reporters in Downing Street, suggesting that he feared the worst.
"I congratulated him on his campaign and what he had done to secure the Olympics for London, what he had done for transport in London and what he has done to improve policing in London, and what he was doing for affordable housing in London – all these issues that Ken Livingstone has raised as Mayor," Mr Brown said.
Opinion polls have suggested the tightest result since the position of mayor was created in 2000.
While a series of YouGov surveys for London's Evening Standard newspaper have given Mr Johnson a comfortable advantage – most recently by a seven-point margin in first-preference votes – other pollsters have put the candidates neck and neck or given a small lead to Mr Livingstone.
It appeared that neither man would win 50% of the first choice votes cast, and the result will depend on second-preference votes redistributed from the other candidates.
Turnout in the capital was estimated by officials to be 45% – or roughly 5.4 million votes - up a fifth on the last set of elections in 2004 and the first time more than two million people have voted.
London voters have also been choosing the 25-member London Assembly, with 14 members directly elected from constituencies each made up of two London boroughs and the remaining 11 divided between the parties in proportion to London-wide votes.
The Conservatives are hoping to maintain their position as the largest single grouping, but it is thought unlikely any party will obtain an overall majority.
Much attention will now be focused on whether the far-right British National Party or George Galloway's left-leaning Respect can pass the 5% threshold to secure their first seat on the Assembly, which scrutinises the work of the Mayor.
The Greens and UK Independence Party will be hoping to repeat their successes in 2004, when each took two seats.
Electronic counting in London started at 8.30am today, with constituency results expected from mid-afternoon and the mayoral and London-wide results in the evening.
By 5.45pm, Mr Johnson was ahead on first-preference votes in eight out of the 14 constituencies, with Mr Livingstone ahead in the remaining six.
But Saturday's Scotsman for full coverage and analysis of the London mayoral race and the council electionsThe full article contains 514 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
