London mayor poll: Boris Johnson most popular with Yahoo! readers

Conservative candidate Boris Johnson is the overwhelming favourite to retain his seat as London mayor, according to a Yahoo! News poll.

As residents across London file into polling stations to vote on their new mayor, our online poll of 6,000 people found that support for Boris is more than double that of Labour candidate Ken Livingstone, with the incumbent mayoral claiming 56% percent of the overall vote.

Should Boris Johnson see a similar result in the mayoral vote he will remain in the hotseat, with candidates needing 50% of first-choice votes for outright victory. Any figure below 50% will see the top two candidates go into a run-off in which second-preference votes would count towards the overall vote figure.

[Related link: All the latest on the London mayor and local elections]

In our poll Ken lags way behind Boris, receiving just a quarter of votes. And in a surprise turn the Green party candidate Jenny Jones proved more popular than Liberal Democrat Brian Paddick, a former Deputy Assistant Commissioner in the Metropolitan Police.

Independent candidate Siobhan Benita and contenders representing UKIP and the BNP received 10% of votes casted under our “Other” option.

Full list of London Mayoral candidates:

• BENITA Siobhan [Independent]

• CORTIGLIA Carlos [British National Party]

• JOHNSON Boris [Conservative Party]

• JONES Jenny [Green Party]

• LIVINGSTONE Ken [Labour Party]

• PADDICK Brian [Liberal Democrats]

• WEBB Lawrence James [UKIP]