London mayor: will the Beautiful One succeed the Crumpled One next May?

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/shortcuts/2015/oct/04/london-mayor-zac-goldsmith-beautiful-one

Version 0 of 1.

Name: London mayor.

Age: 15 – Ken Livingstone was elected as the first mayor on 4 May 2000.

Appearance: At present: blond, crumpled, comical.

And in the future? That depends who London voters choose next May.

Who’s in the running? Well, not Boris Johnson, AKA the Crumpled One. He stepped down to position himself to succeed David Cameron.

Related: London mayoral race: Zac Goldsmith v Sadiq Khan

Who have the Tories chosen as their candidate? The Beautiful One – Zac Goldsmith, MP for leafy Richmond Park – with his “sculpted cheekbones, bee-stung lips, honied voice and tall, liquid grace” (© the Guardian’s Decca Aitkenhead).

Brief A-Z(ac): Son of late billionaire financier James Goldsmith; yet another old Etonian, but one who was expelled for cannabis possession; inherited about £300m when his father died; committed environmentalist who once owned an organic farm in Devon; Eurosceptic, like his dad; smokes a lot.

Who will he appeal to? He’s a kind of anti-politician – “My experience of politicians has been thoroughly negative,” he once said – chosen as a parliamentary candidate by Cameron when he was rebranding the Tories. But does crunchy, multicultural London want a Eurosceptic posh boy?

Who’s he up against? Big rival is Labour’s Sadiq Khan. The MP for Tooting is the son of a bus driver, one of eight children, and grew up on a council estate in south London. The contrast with the gilded Goldsmith could not be greater.

Who else is running? George Galloway, without whom no election would be complete, is standing for Respect; the Greens are fielding Siân Berry, their candidate in 2008; the Lib Dems have local politician Caroline Pidgeon; Peter Whittle will carry the Ukip flag; former BNP councillor Paul Golding is standing for Britain First; independent Siobhan Benita, who came a respectable fifth in 2012, is running again; Rosalind Readhead is standing on a Ban Private Cars in London ticket; and Polish aristocrat Janek Zylinski, who in April challenged Nigel Farage to a duel, is standing as an anti-Ukip candidate.

Quite a field. And there’s plenty of time for others to join the race. Nominations don’t close until 31 March. There are suggestions Sandi Toksvig might stand for the Women’s Equality party.

Not to be confused with: The largely honorific post of Lord Mayor of London.

Do say: “If it wasn’t for the £10,000 deposit, I’d stand myself.”

Don’t say: “You could always borrow the money from Zac.”