First the good news. The Annual London Survey shows the Mayor of London Boris Johnson has a strongly positive approval rating. 26% of Londoners pronounced themselves very or fairly satisfied with "the way Boris Johnson is doing his job as Mayor of London" against just 11% who were fairly of very dissatisfied. That left most neutral or with no opinion. Given that half the people don't turn out to vote that is unremarkable. But it also shows fair minded people are waiting a bit longer to see how things work out.
Furthermore of those dissatisfied 3% said it was he "broke his promise on Congestion Charge." This is probably a complaint at the delay getting rid of the CC Extension – not Boris's fault but in any event due to go by Christmas. Among the positives is scrapping the bendy buses – this should be a stronger factor as the last bendy buses leave the streets.
The cautionary note is that Ken Livingstone also had favourable ratings (with fewer undecideds) – in 2007 it was 42% satisfied against 22% dissatisfied. We all know what happen to him. In April 2007, I guess just after this survey was carried out, I was among a group of Conservative Borough Council reps who went to see him in City Hall. He was full of confidence about his election prospects. Teasing us about there apparently being nobody even will to stand as the Tory candidate so hopeless were the prospects of defeating him, etc.
All sorts of things could happen. Oona King currently has more endorsements from London Labour MPs for her candidature than Livingstone does. She was be a harder candidate to beat than Livingstone.
Also while Boris has a capable and imaginative team at City Hall they have yet to put their backs into the boring task of budget cutting on anything like the scale required. A big cut in the Council Tax precept would do wonders for Boris's reelection prospects.