Latest London Mayor poll shows Jowell remains frontrunner

Tessa Jowell remains the frontrunner in the race for for City Hall, according to a new poll. YouGov research for the Evening Standard shows that Jowell is not only favourite among Labour supporters, who will be selecting the party’s candidate this summer, but also polls higher than Zac Goldsmith, widely seen as the Tory frontrunner.

Current intentions among Labour supporters are:

Tessa Jowell 23%, Sadiq Khan 20%, David Lammy 9%, Diane Abbott 9%

While this shows a sustained lead for Jowell, both from previous polls and LabourList surveys. However, Khan’s campaign point out that the gap between their candidate and Jowell has closed considerably.

It is not yet clear how Christian Wolmar and Gareth Thomas, the other two candidates on the Labour ballot, performed.

In a straight two-way race between Jowell and Goldsmith, it was found that the former Dulwich and West Norwood MP had a 14 point lead – 57% to 43%. Jowell, it found, could attract around 10% of those who voted Tory in May’s General Election. Sadiq Khan also performed strongly against Goldsmith, with polling showing a 50%/50% split in support between the two, with a very large number of undecideds.

Both of the two leading candidates in the Labour contest have made big announcements this week.

Jowell revealed plans to do away with the zone system on the tube at weekends, meaning that Londoners would be able to travel across the city for the price of a single zone fare. She would also introduce one hour bus tickets, meaning that people would be able to change bus routes without paying more than once.

Sadq Khan, meanwhile, has today come out against Heathrow airport expansion – giving his backing instead to a new runway at Gatwick. He said: