While opinion polls are evenly split, Ken Livingstone is currently well ahead of his Tory rival in terms of indiscreet comments
Age UK is a fitting host of the first hustings of the London mayoral campaign, not only because 15% of the capital's residents are over 60 but also because age itself is a factor in the race. At 67, Ken Livingstone is fighting as a sexagenarian for the second time and demonstrating in this neck-and-neck contest that rising from the political dead following his defeat four years ago is not beyond him. But will his seniority help or hinder his quest to turf young Boris Johnson, 47, out of City Hall?
Johnson himself seems to have changed to his approach to the issue. One of his jokes in the 2008 campaign was that his rival was the only candidate eligible for a Freedom Pass, a concessionary scheme entitling London's over-60s and disabled free use of public transport.
Following Livingstone's selection as Labour's candidate for 2012 the Tory mayor and sidekicks eagerly mocked his years, patronising him as "a game old boy". One mayoral team member chortled that "all pensioners should have ambition" and called Livingstone "an old retread" – odd comments coming from an equalities adviser, you might think.
More recently, though, such jibes have been confined to Ken-hate cultists. The official Johnson campaign is probably wise to desist, given the sympathies of London voters. The most recent opinion poll, conducted by YouGov, showed support for the two front-runners evenly split among the under-25s, Livingstone favoured among the 25-59 age range – the Ken generation, perhaps – but with over-60s preferring Johnson by almost two to one. "Good old Boris" won't want to get on the wrong side of the capital's game old boys and girls.
Not that he'll be deferring to his main opponent's extra 20 years' experience on Earth during the long, ugly slog to 3 May. Johnson's campaign has been quite numbingly negative so far, peddling red scare insinuations that Livingstone and Bob Crow are thick as thieves (they fell out long ago) and that his running mate, Val Shawcross, has been lobbying for a council tax rise (she hasn't). It's the Labour man who's played the biggest positive card, promising to cut public transport fares by 7% if he wins.
Johnson has called the plan an unaffordable "swindle" – that's rude, but not truly Boris-esque. Now that the race is breaking into the open, perhaps we'll see more of the Tory's famously vivid public persona and less of its pale shadow regurgitating attack lines fed to him by his controversial election supremo Lynton Crosby.
Livingstone is way ahead for indiscreet quips so far. Surely Britain's most comedic Conservative can do better?