It began with almost military precision. It was 11.40 a.m. on College Green in the shadow of Big Ben. And just in case anyone in London was in any doubt that the shiny purple double-decker bus pulling up beside the Houses of Parliament was promoting the Ken Livingstone mayoral campaign, the posters plastered all over the vehicle said it all. "Ken 4 London" was the mayoral love chant. London loved him back.
The camera crews and journalists grumbled a bit as they boarded the Ken Express for a quick campaign tour, as most of them had stood around in the drizzle for half an hour getting their cameras wet. The only ones smiling, apart from the permagrins on the faces of Ken's "Purple Crew", were a group of pensioners braving the cold to protest about their measly benefits.
Maybe it was the sound of the air-raid siren blaring out from the back of the bus that confused one of the ladies among the pensioners, or perhaps she thought she had stumbled upon a Cliff Richard-style summer holiday convention. "Ooh, have a good week," she said waving the bus off as it turned into Parliament Square. "God bless you all."
Divine intervention might come in handy for Ken's rivals come May 4th, but the Purple Crew's belief in Ken, better known to his aides as The Candidate, certainly left no room for chance. "I think he's the right person for the job and the longer I'm here the more and more I'm convinced of that," chirped one Purple Crew member.
One of the younger members of the crew seemed a bit off-message when he admitted he'd joined the campaign because he wanted something to do during the Easter holidays. But he quickly recovered with an almost Blairite grasp of sound-bite politics when he spluttered: "I'm not old enough to vote, but I would vote for him though if I could." Perhaps Ken should sign him up as his official spokesman.
The campaign bus was supposed to pick up The Candidate at 1 p.m. at Victoria. But ahead of Ken's arrival the Purple Crew would be "playing the urban form in the urban environment", an aide said.
No one was sure what he meant, but there passed between the camera crews a kind of silent agreement that it might be worth hanging around for.
In the end it was a rather bumpy ride around Westminster, South Bank and the Royal Festival Hall with Toby, one of the Purple Crew, taking on the role of seaside compere grabbing a microphone and firing off a stream of one-liners. No one was safe from his side-splitting humour. "It's a secret ballot this time, guys," Toby told anyone who was listening. "Let's see if you can rig it this time." He tried again when the bus passed the Department of Trade and Industry. The security guards and civil servants were told to "throw off your shackles . . . we won't tell anyone". Unsurprisingly, there weren't any takers.
Some of the Purple Crew got off to hand out posters of Ken and badges with the "Ken 4 London" slogan. Then the tour took a strange turn. Bemused tourists waved at the bus even if they didn't know why they were doing it and on Westminster Bridge a man with greased back hair, dressed as a football referee, waved a yellow card at the Purple Crew. The "mass communication" episode was soon over. "Three minutes Purple Crew," an aide said and they duly returned to the shiny purple bus.
It was nearly 1.15 p.m. when The Candidate finally arrived on his purple victory chariot, such is Ken's lead in the polls.
Ken also did a good stream of one-liners from the top of the bus. He chatted up the women: "Ooh, that's a nice scarf, are you going to vote for me? Come on, it won't hurt," and cosied up to the red heads: "Oh I know he'll be voting for me 'cause I'm champion of the red heads." He even made the van drivers on Lambeth Bridge smile when he grabbed the microphone and shouted at them: "You haven't got a sandwich down there have you, I'm starving?"
It was light and frothy stuff, but underneath the "cheeky, Cockney chappie" routine there was serious, canny Ken. "I'll fight to keep the Tube in the public sector," he shouted, and promised Londoners he would end 25 years of "milking" their pockets to fund the rest of Britain.
As suddenly as The Candidate had appeared he was gone. Hopping off the bus at Liverpool Street, all planning was forgotten when he bounded into a crowd to sign autographs. The City boys and girls looked happy to see him, gladly pinning "Ken 4 London" badges to their dark suits. The Candidate disappeared beneath the cameras.
A Labour Party spokesman said yesterday inquiries into Mr Livingstone's election expenses would not interfere with the election results. "Although we are suspicious about the level of spending by Ken Livingstone, there is no question of us seeking to overturn the result of Thursday's poll, whoever is elected."
During a television debate, Mr Livingstone said he had given his campaign staff "clear instructions" not to spend more than £400,000 so that his spending would be under the limit.