Kramer: to campaign with her cat Dick

Susan Kramer (49)

Susan Kramer (49)

The Liberal Democrats were the first major party to select their candidate for mayor of London. The party leader, Charles Kennedy, unveiled Susan Kramer (49), a transport expert, as candidate last August after she won the support of 62 per cent of party members balloted in London.

Declaring she would walk every high street in London during her election campaign - accompanied by her cat, called Dick Whittington - Kramer has also promised that sorting out London's transport problems would be her priority as mayor. Kramer is against a public-private partnership for the Tube and believes the private sector should be targeted to finance and improve the Tube network. She argues that contracting out services would reduce costs and avoid the breakup of the system. However, with little chance of winning the mayoral vote on May 4th Kramer's campaign has focused on attacking Labour and Conservative transport plans.

One of the more interesting policies put forward by a mayoral candidate is former punk frontman Malcolm McLaren's proposal to have Guinness served in all public libraries.

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McLaren launched his mayoral manifesto in an article for the New Statesman. He wants to make international coffee-shop chains pay higher rents than smaller businesses and he wants to dismantle the Millennium Dome.