A bitterly fought election campaign ended on Friday evening with Boris Johnson named the next mayor of London.

The Conservative incumbent defeated Ken Livingstone by a narrow margin of 51.5 per cent to 48.5 per cent.

He pledged to fight for a “good deal for Londoners,” and thanked voters for giving him “a new chance and a new mandate to take us forward”.

The London mayoral election has been the opposite of edifying. The grown-ups have been behaving like drunken relatives at a wedding reception.

Labour mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone has offered his former party rival a job if he is elected.

Mr Livingstone announced today that he would make Oona King his Young People's Champion if he was victorious at next week's vote.

A group of prominent Jewish Labour supporters who expressed their concerns about Ken Livingstone have now endorsed his candidacy for London Mayor.

A high-profile Labour peer has publicly stated that voters should not back Ken Livingstone to be mayor of London.

Lord Sugar, the Apprentice boss and millionaire entrepreneur, wrote on Twitter: "I don't care if Ed Miliband is backing Livingstone.

"I seriously suggest NO ONE votes for Livingstone in the Mayoral elections."

One of the most salutary effects of ageing is the realisation that the advancing years do not necessarily bring wisdom or emotional maturity. When something goes wrong, you still look for somebody else to blame. If you break a vase, you curse whoever left it in your way, and any motoring mishap is inevitably the other driver's fault.

Brian Paddick, the Liberal Democrats' London mayoral election candidate, said this week that his Labour opponent had used "dog- whistle tactics to play divide and rule" and declared: "Labour should be ashamed to have him as a candidate".