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First preference votes by London Assembly constituency. Blue constituencies are those with most first preference votes for Steven Norris and purple those for Ken Livingstone
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Position established
The first election to the office of Mayor of London took place on 4 May 2000.
Ken Livingstone had sought the Labour Party nomination but was defeated by Frank Dobson. He described the result as "tainted" because the election system gave greater weight to the votes of London Labour MPs, MEPs, & GLA candidates, rather than rank-and-file party members, and decided to contest the election as an Independent candidate. On handing in nomination papers he was automatically expelled from the Labour Party.
Steve Norris had lost the original selection ballot for Conservative candidate to Jeffrey Archer, but Archer stood down as a candidate when a newspaper printed a story accusing him of committing perjury during a 1987 libel trial (he was later convicted and imprisoned).