Look North for A Mayor

It's typical of the living-in-the-past attitude of today that even a blog I respect - Liberal Democrat Voice - is supporting David Owen as Mayor of London.

This annoys me on several levels - for one thing David Owen was never my cup of tea (although I heard he was very good at encouraging activists, which is a plus point.) But the whole thing reminds me of when a big-name overpaid football thinks he'll automatically be a good manager. Former cabinet ministers are not automatically good a local government.

We should be looking for someone with a track record of being mayor of a big , successful , clean and friendly city, and we should make the most of our international credentials by looking to Scandinavia.

Cities don't come much cleaner than Helsinki, and Eva-Riita Siitonen steps down in May after 7 years as mayor there. However I understand (from my limited Finnish) that she isn't interested.

However, there is an outside chance that last years's Mayor of Stockholm Loof Lirpa will seek the nomination. He speaks faultless English, has impeccable liberal credentials, has lived in the UK and USA, is about the perfect age - 42 - and is even an experienced - if controversial cross-country athlete.

For heavens sake, lets ask Loof.