BRITAIN:BORIS JOHNSON completed Gordon Brown's election nightmare last night by sensationally ousting two-term London mayor Ken Livingstone.
Mr Johnson had refused to take anything for granted as the slow electronic count carried the final City Hall declaration toward the midnight hour. But that did nothing to deter Liberal Democrat challenger Brian Paddick and London's Evening Standard newspaper from declaring Boris "the new Mayor" - or bookmaker Paddy Power, who had reportedly already started paying-out on a Johnson victory hours before the count was anywhere near completed.
In a final campaign shot Mr Livingstone had appealed to Londoners to "Vote for London - not a Joke".
But from early morning it had seemed clear Mr Johnson would have the last laugh, amid indications from the three counting centres that he was leading the Labour incumbent in eight of the 14 capital constituencies, including five with the highest turnout.
From shortly after the counting started the BBC quoted sources in all three main parties predicting a Johnson win, and London minister Tessa Jowell - while refusing to concede defeat - admitted last evening that the evidence was pointing that way and that Mr Livingstone was unlikely to survive.
As Labour suffered its worst local election results in 40 years, deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman had earlier admitted she expected "the national result to be reflected in London, probably". And there was an almost valedictory air in 10 Downing Street when the prime minister Gordon Brown confirmed he had spoken to Mr Livingstone on Thursday night after the polls had closed.
"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 had 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," said Mr Brown.
Mr Brown's hope had been that a Livingstone victory against the national trend would have helped salvage something from the wreckage of his first disastrous election as Labour leader and prime minister. In the end, however, the Johnson victory only increased the alarm among anxious backbench Labour MPs who had become increasingly fearful about their parliamentary majorities.
As the London School of Economics' London government expert Tony Travers told the BBC: "Remember, Ken was always worth more votes than the Labour Party." If the two-times mayor lost, therefore, "it would be seen as a symptom of a much deeper problem."
Turnout for Thursday's mayoral contest was estimated at 45 per cent, up from 37 per cent four years ago, and evidence of the pulling and polarising power of the two front-runners distinguished among politicians by their ready first-name recognition.
London voters were also electing members to the 25-member London Assembly, with 14 members directly elected from the constituencies, each comprising two London boroughs and the remaining 11 divided between the parties in proportion to the votes cast overall.
The Conservatives were hoping to maintain their position as the largest grouping in the assembly, although no party was thought capable of winning an overall majority. Throughout the campaign many Conservative supporters had refused to allow themselves to believe that Boris Johnson could actually defeat Ken Livingstone despite the evidence of some opinion polls that he had a potentially comfortable lead in terms of first preference votes.