Boris Johnson, the floppy-haired media celebrity and Conservative member of Parliament who transformed himself from a figure of fun into a plausible political force, was sworn in as mayor of London after an electoral victory that was a resounding rebuke to the Labour government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
In a brief speech, he reiterated promises to tackle crime, improve the bus system and increase affordable housing. Afterward, he met with the police and transport commissioners and with experts he hopes to enlist as part of his team, The AP reported.
As votes were tallied across the country after elections on Thursday, it emerged that the Labour Party had suffered its worst local election results in at least 40 years. With final votes in for the 159 local councils in which seats were being contested, Labour lost 331 seats over all, and the Conservative opposition gained 256.
The Labour Party took an estimated 24 percent of the overall vote, placing it a woeful third behind the Conservatives, with 44 percent, and the Liberal Democrats, with 25 percent.
But it was the mayoral race, in which Johnson, 43, defeated the experienced Labour incumbent, Ken Livingstone, 62, by 1,168,738 votes to 1,028,966 votes, that was the biggest shock - a sure sign of a deep national weariness with the Labour government. London has been resolutely Labour in recent years, and its loss is a bitter blow to the national party.
This was the first big test of Gordon Brown and David Cameron," said Stephan Shakespeare, a co-founder of YouGov, a polling company, speaking of the Conservative Party leader. "We've had a lot of ups and downs, a lot of debate and a lot of polling, and until this moment the general feeling of malaise that hung over this government hasn't been made concrete or specific. Now it has. It shows that something has profoundly changed in British politics."
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