July 31: Labour selects Tessa Jowell as its Mayoral candidate.
September 24: The Conservatives select Zac Goldsmith as their Mayoral candidate.
December 20: The Prime Minister announces that the Government will support the Davies Commission’s proposals (plus and minus a few tweaks) to build a third runway at Heathrow.
December 21: Zac Goldsmith announces that he is leaving the Conservative Party, will sit as an independent MP in the Commons, will stand for London Mayor as an independent candidate, and will hold his promised Richmond by-election in June 2016 if he wins the Mayoral contest.
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January 1-May 5: Goldsmith continues to vote with the Conservatives most of the time in the Commons, as before, whenever he’s there (which now is less than it was).
January 20: The Conservatives select Harry Phibbs, Hammersmith Conservative councillor and Local Government Editor of this parish, as its new Mayoral candidate. Others who previously expressed an interest in standing have declared themselves unavailable.
May 5: Polls suggested that Goldsmith might have defeated Sadiq Khan as a Conservative, but not Tessa Jowell. But his new independent status, plus transfers from Phibbs, now carries him over the winning line.
May 15: Goldsmith announces a London “Cabinet of all the talents”. Most of its members are Conservatives. Phibbs becomes Statutory Deputy Mayor.
June 29: An anti-Heathrow expansion Conservative defeats five independent candidates, all of whom promise “to carry on Zac’s good work”, in the Richmond Park by-election by-election. He has also promises “to carry on Zac’s good work”.
June 30, early morning: David Cameron and George Osborne open a bottle of Krug Brut David Sugar Engraved ‘Quail Design in Flowering Tree’. Diggers move into Heathrow. Mission Accomplished!