When Tory canvassers asked for my vote in the London mayoral elections they had the grace to giggle, as if this were some carnival stunt or student rag. Such japes. I said I wouldn't be voting, for lack of candidates. I used to favour directly elected mayors, to get participation up and encourage good people to stand. In London the failure on both counts has been catastrophic.

Only one statistic matters, and you never hear it: some 86 per cent of eligible Londoners did not vote for Ken Livingstone in 2000 and (in the first round) in 2004. The result? He was an easy victor. That's what you get when turnout is about a third. Flush with his 14 per cent authority, the representative of our great city will put you right on world affairs in bar-room style. Such as how we must dialogue mutely with Muslim clerics so as not offend any medieval sensibilities. Corruption? If our national treasure were caught roasting babies on a spit in Trafalgar Square people would grin and say, c'mon, that's just our Ken, innit?

Then there is Boris Johnson. The gaiety of nations I understand, but the most entertaining thing about Johnson is when he puts on his serious, solicitous look. Like David Cameron, he is coming to believe in his own sincerity. Servility to celebrity has partially replaced class deference, and the adoring polls suggest that Johnson benefits from both. A Greek grocer I knew put his finger on it. Musing about how Alan Clark imagined relieving himself on the public from his ministerial balcony, he concluded: “The English don't mind being pissed on, so long as it's from a great height.”

It is not Johnson one should feel embarrassed for, as he clowns around, it is the country. His latest jape is an amnesty for those migrant fellows. Was that ever in his Telegraph column? Different audience, whispers Cameron, with a conniving wink. Is Johnson getting all political, saying things that don't reflect his true opinion? Or has contact with London's impoverished masses seared his soul, and we are witnessing a Boris Égalité in the making?

Of Brian Paddick there is nothing to be said. Paris has a gay socialist Mayor, Bertrand Delanoë, a city councillor for 30 years who does a good job because he's an able, experienced fellow. No one talks about his gayness, so let's not talk about Paddick.

How should we respond to a descending spiral of a low turnout and low-grade candidates? Do our democratic duty? No, your duty is to stay at home. A mass abstention would show that Londoners have pride enough to want a different calibre of politico in charge. When democracy reaches the end of the line, the most democratic thing the public can do is to show they know.

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