Terrible news for Londoners !

The terrible news for Londoners is that Damian Hockney will not be running as a candidate in the Mayoral elections.

"Who is Damian Hockney" did I hear you say ? Well he is well known amongst a certain group of people who watch politics closely, although if you lived outside of London, or indeed outside of Mr Hockney's family, you might easily be forgiven for seeing him as something of an irrelevance.

Mr Hockney stood in the last Greater London Assembly elections as a UKIP candidate and on the back of a big surge for UKIP got himself elected to the GLA. This appears to have gone somewhat to his head and when Robert Kilroy-Silk launched his own "Orange" Party called Veritas, Mr Hockney decided to jump ship and become deputy leader of Veritas. Oh the glory he must have had in being deputy party leader of a political party. One can only imagine the power he must have felt in this position.

The problem was though for Mr Hockney that Veritas (the latin for Truth) was about as popular and robust as a chocolate teapot, and very soon this new political party fell apart. This obviously left Mr Hockney in a difficult position. Remain as the all powerful (deputy) head of Veritas, which was much like being the Mayor of Berlin the day before the Russian's captured it in 1945, or leave and find another party.

So in late 2005, a year in which he had been in UKIP and Veritas, he helped found the One London Party, or as some might see it, the only party that would probably have him. After all, Mr Hockney had also been a member of the Referendum Party and the Conservative Party, so his options were becoming more limited. Of course if he wanted to join an anti EU party the Greens were still an option, although I can't imagine things had really got that bad for him that he would want to join the Greens.

So what does Mr Hockney's withdrawal mean ? Well he will save his party £10,000 by not losing their deposit, which in many ways has to be the seen as possibly the main reason for his withdrawal. His rather childish comments of not getting enough media coverage might also reflect on his though.

The media are only going to cover actual candidates, and if the media are not sure that a candidate is even serious, why should they give them publicity. In many ways the media's decision to ignore Mr Hockney has been completely justified by his decision to withdraw from the mayoral race. The media may also be concerned that any coverage they may given Mr Hockney might be misleading as give his track record, can we be sure he will still be in the One London Party in a month's time ?